Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Motion Pictures and Platinum Studios, Inc., an entertainment company that controls an international library of more than 5,600 comic book characters which it adapts, produces and licenses for all forms of media and Top Cow Productions, an entertainment company specializing in building intellectual properties through comic book and graphic novel publication, have attached Ryuhei Kitamura to direct and Holly Brix to write the feature film Magdalena, based on Top Cow’s comic book character.
Kitamura previously directed Midnight Meat Train for Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment, and he has directed numerous Japanese films including Godzilla: Final Wars, Love Death, Sky High and Azumi among many others.
Brix previously wrote The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations released in January by Lionsgate and After Dark Films, adapted thriller The Lost Girls for MTV Films with Michelle Manning producing, rewrote Smooth Operator at Warner Bros for Jerry Weintraub Productions, and wrote Mile Zero set up at Phoenix Pictures with Marcel Langenegger directing and Milla Jovovich starring.
Gale Anne Hurd and Platinum Studios’ Chairman and CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg are set to produce. Top Cow’s CEO Marc Silvestri (“Witchblade,” Darkness) would serve as executive producer as would former Universal Pictures senior executive Randy Greenberg of The Greenberg Group, who helped negotiate the deal. Matt Hawkins, President of Top Cow Productions, is set to co-produce.
“Both Kitamura and Brix bring very unique visions to ‘Magdalena,'” said Hurd. “Kitamura’s visual style coupled with Brix imaginative narrative will truly make ‘Magdalena’ a compelling film on screen,” added Hurd.
“We have wanted to work with Kitamura for some time and his appetite for the material is infectious,” said Rosenberg. “Brix has been on our radar, and we are thrilled that she has agreed to be a part of this project.”
“Magdalena is a very complex but visually stunning world and we believe that Kitamura and Brix are the right talents to bring this to life,” said Silvestri.
