islandclaws

From Shock till you Drop:

Big progress for the Darkchylde feature film adaptation. The last we reported on the potential film WETA had revealed some test FX to the public.

Today, it was revealed (on Halloween of all days), John Carpenter is on board to direct Darkchylde. The film is based on the comic by Randy Queen about an amiable southern teen cursed to become the creatures from her many recurring nightmares. Every time Ariel Chylde transforms, she sheds her skin and a new nightmare emerges from her Id to act out her deepest, darkest impulses.

John Carpenter and Sandy King's Storm King Productions have allied with Randy and Sarah Queen's Darkchylde Entertainment to produce the film, following the release of that aforementioned test footage created by Richard Taylor's Academy Award Winning Weta Workshop.

John Carpenter says, "Randy Queen's hijacked angel, Ariel Chylde, is the best young female character since Laurie Strode in Halloween. Bringing Ariel and her dark mysteries to life should be quite an adventure for us all."

Adds Queen, "I'm beyond thrilled that John Carpenter, one of our most important, and legendary genre directors, and the man responsible for such landmark films as The Thing, and Halloween has come on board with Weta Workshop to help bring the nightmarish tale of Ariel Chylde to the silver screen. As a horror fan, the thought of Carpenter and Weta together, beautiful dreamscapes, and multiple transformations, makes me incredibly excited. There is a reason nearly his entire catalogue has, or is being remade, and it's because Carpenter is a genius."

Offering a stark contrast to super hero comics, Darkchylde was a breakout sensation of the late 90's and early 2000's, garnering immediate acclaim, and an unusually large female fanbase. The property went on to outsell Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman in both domestic and foreign audiences, and has been realized in toys, trading cards, apparel, lunch boxes, mini busts, and more recently a hit crossover with Top Cow, and a statue from PopCultureShockToys.

Fans can now read the Ariel Chylde saga online via Wowio and Darkchylde.com and a trade paperback collecting the "Legacy" and "Redemption" series of books ships in January from Image Comics.

<img src=http://shocktillyoudrop.com/nextraimages/john-carpenter-darkchylde.jpg alt=dc

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I'm always excited for any JC news. This sounds like a project I'd love to see Bottin collaborate with him on.

BJacks

I never heard of the comic before. Hard to believe it "outsold Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman." Sounds interesting though, I look forward to JC's take provided it gets made.

Geofferson

I still have a kernel of hope that Carpenter still has some original creativity left in him...

RocShemp

Great poster. The comicbook doesn't ring a bell, however.

stingermck

I remember when the comic came out, but I never read it. I'll check out the trade in January.

AVP77

Those quotes are hilarious, so wooden, i'm surprised they don't include "Turn page....oh."

John Carpenter's career trajectory is a thing of wonder.

stingermck

M history is fuzzy, but I can see it happening if the comic was released in the 90's with the whole bad girl craze. Wouldnt take much to outsell Spidey during/after the Clone Saga

Heres what Wiki says, though note the lack of citation:

Josh-da-man

Darkchylde was popular during the bad girl bubble of the mid-90s. It's one of those comic books whose sole purpose was to have a "sexy" chick on the cover and sell variant covers out the wazoo. It started out with one of Rob Liefeld's companies, either Extreme, Awesome, or Maximum, and spent some time at one of Jim Lee's imprints, Homage, probably, until Queen started up his own company.

I never bothered reading it, as it looked dreadful.

With the comics industry in turmoil at the time ... what with the Heroes World fiasco Marvel created, it's entirely possible that the book was outselling stuff like Superman and Spider-Man. Back then indie companies dcompete head-to-head with Marvel and DC sales-wise, unlike today, where M and DC dominate.

Bob_Bobbson

Yeah, I remember this comic was pretty big when it came out (1996).

It was during the Image Comics boom, when they had a several hits like Spawn and Witchblade. This comic was had a similar art style to Witchblade and was published by Rob Liefeld's offshoot from Image, Maximum Press...

So yeah, it is possible it out sold Spidey and a few others at some point during it's run.

Bob_Bobbson

Yeah, but it also was only a 5 Issue Miniseries, so short term success was all it needed. Darkchylde never had an ongoing, only a handful of Mini's and some oneshots.

Solid Snake

I hate Carpenter nowadays....he's done nothing I care about for a very long time.

Let's see what he can do though..the bastard needs to do something good eventually....

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gmanca

He should have been pumping out the smaller films he was attached to like LA Noir or Riot or Psychopath or Fangland(is that still happening?)

RocShemp

The making of was more interesting than the actual test footage. It was barely a step above an animatic. I'll wait 'till something more substantial surfaces.

Sonic

I say bring Piper back from the dead and make They Live 2!

Trevor

I gave that up several films ago.

covenant

They Live is just goofy fun. I watched a lot of classic Carpenter this October. The Fog, The Thing, Prince of Darkness and Halloween, of course. Some channel was showing John Carpenter's Vampires this weekend and I'd never seen it so I gave it a shot. I turned it off after 10 minutes. Dreadful.

What was his last great movie?

DaveyJoe

In the Mouth of Madness

Solid Snake

For me...Carpenter has only made 5 films that matter in terms of quality.

Assault on Precinct 13
Halloween
Escape From NY
The Thing
Big Trouble in Little China


That's it. The man is no good to me anymore....

I'll admit. They Live has a very cool idea in there but isn't amazingly executed. I still like it though..but not enough to own it.

Groucho

Yeah, I've often wondered why the studios wasted time on Superman, Spider-Man and Batman movies when the super-popular Darkchylde is what everybody wants to see!

covenant

I need to see that.
As it is my Carpenter cut off is 1988

Dr. DVD

In The Mouth of Madness was the last Carpenter film that I felt was worth anything, though I didn't find Vampires as dreadful as others. I make it a point to see his movies more out of respect as he once came to the town where I went to college (which happened to be his hometown) and took about two hours to sit down and talk to me and a couple of other fans about the movie business and his inspirations.

Is Darkchylde available in collected volumes?

Josh-da-man

I do have to wonder, why, out of all of the comic books available for adaption out there, Carpenter would go after Darkchylde.

I never read it, but everything about it just looked dreadful. Like it was one of those things where there's no coherent storyline, just an excuse to pump out gold logo/Wizard ACE/colored foil/chromium variants and swimsuit and lingerie specials.

Eric D.

Who is the target audience for this, the Twilight crowd? Since the comic was seemingly marketed to and embraced by girls, I assume the film will take a similar route. Because based on the plot synopsis and that teaser trailer, I don't see anything appealing about this. I keep hoping the Carpenter who made Halloween, The Thing, BTILC and The Fog will make a return one day...but it doesn't seem like this will be the film that does it.

Solid Snake

what teaser trailer? I just put up an effects test....

Eric D.

Whatever, you know what I mean. It gave a taste of the story and what to expect.