Numbers Game

Grant Morrison now has two screenplays in development: We3, from his own comic, is set up at New Line; Area 51, extrapolated from the videogame of the same name, is on the slate at Paramount.

Though both feature powerful inhuman characters fighting to escape containment in a scientific facility, the similarities stop there. Area 51 is relatively straight-up - or at least it was, until Morrison got involved - and We3 is brilliantly esoteric and eccentric.

The premise of We3 is brilliant: a dog, a cat and a rabbit escape from a lab where they have been experimented upon and transformed into prototype animal weapons. They've had their congitive abilities boosted significantly, though they remain relatively unsophisticated, intellectually speaking, and they've been surrounded by armoured suits equipped with ridiculous weapons.

Morrison uses this set-up to explore a whole range of ideas, and does so superbly. Animal rights are obviously a key concern, but there's a lot more wrestling with evolution, existential ideas of 'purpose' and natural order.

If We3 does go into production, I promise that I'll follow it very, very closely. And I'll also be very, very jealous - if there's one comic book adaptation I'd like to direct, I think this is the one.