Death Ray For Black

Daniel Clowes is to adapt his own strip Death Ray, from his Eightball comics anthology, to a feature length film.

The key role is getting a makeover, no loner being a superpowered teen but a superpowered 40-something. Jack Black is to take a role, though not this lead, and produce.

Yes, another comic book adaptation about somebody with superpowers. Wonder why we're hearing about this now?

Since winning his surprise Oscar nomination for Ghost World, Clowes reteamed with Terry Zwigoff for the criminally neglected Art School Confidential; span a feature length script out of the true story of some obsessive kids remaking Raiders of the Lost Ark shot by shot; and has lately been adapting Rudy Rucker's novel Master of Space and Time into a screenplay for Michel Gondry.

Reportedly, Clowes is losing enthusiasm for Master rapidly and Gondry is now very much wrapped up in Be Kind, Rewind, so don't be entirely surprised if this film never comes to fruition, or at least gets a shakeup with a new scriptwriter somewhere further down the line.