David Goyer to direct 'Vampire'

New Regency acquires rights to 'Baltimore'

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Goyer

New Regency has acquired screen rights to "Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire," an illustrated novel by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. The authors will write the screenplay, and David Goyer will direct.

Deal, which includes rights to the book and scripting fees, is worth seven figures.

John Baldecchi ("Ultra Violet") and Stacy Maes ("Jumper") will produce.

Just-published by Bantam, the graphic novel tells the story of the awakening of supreme evil on Earth. Lord Henry Baltimore is bitten by a demonic vampire bat on a WWI battlefield. The plague destroys his family, and Baltimore creates a team to hunt and fight the Red King, the embodiment of all evil.

Mignola created the comicbook character and series "Hellboy" and was a conceptual artist on "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "Blade 2." Golden has written novels including "The Myth Hunters" and "Wildwood Road," and three of his titles are being developed into movies by studios.

Goyer, who wrote the "Blade" films and directed "Blade 2" and "The Invisible," next directs the Sheldon Turner-scripted X-Men origin film "Magneto" for Fox. He also wrote "Batman Begins" with Christopher Nolan and just worked with Regency and Maes on the upcoming Doug Liman-directed "Jumper."

Deal is the fourth made by Regency that fits its new mandate to make films appealing to a young male demographic. Regency is developing a movie from the Virgin Comics title "Virulents," with John Moore directing and John Cox ("Sgt. Rock") writing, and it acquired the Leslie Bohem/M.T. Ahern action-thriller spec script "The Darkest Hour."