Super 0 Comes to Film

From Variety

“X-Men: First Class” visual effects supervisor John Dykstra has lined up his first feature as director, “Super Zero.”

“Super Zero” is based on the graphic novel “Tales From the Farm,” by Jeff Lemire. John Carr has penned a screenplay, with Steven Gilder and Alec Chorches producing. Project has been developed by vfx company Rhythm & Hues Studios.

“Tales From the Farm” has won several awards, and Gilder said the producers’ plan is to “make a big splash at ComicCon,” where Lemire and the publisher, Top Shelf Productions, will make an appearance.

Gilder said the producers plan “to have a strong hard push in thesenext weeks, either locking cast and/or getting commitments from financing and/or distributors, (then) going to the studios with a package.”

“Super Zero” will be live action with extensive vfx sequences. Story, which R&H calls edgy but family-friendly, follows an orphaned 10-year-old who goes to live on a farm with his uncle. As their relationship grows strained, he befriends the town’s gas station owner, a former pro hockey player, and the pair escape into a private fantasy world of superheroes and alien invaders.

Dykstra, who won Oscars for visual effects for the original “Star Wars” and 2005’s “Spider-Man 2,” has also been a producer (the original 1978 “Battlestar Galactica” TV series) and a second unit director, but he has never helmed a feature.

He told Variety, “I’ve been so involved in films that are primarily based on the action sequences and over-the-top visuals that this to me was incredibly attractive just based on the depth of the characters and the evocative nature of the story.”

“Super Zero” is the most advanced of the projects on Rhythm & Hues’ development slate, which also includes family comedy “Toad Trip.” R&H was a producer on Warner’s “Yogi Bear,” taking a part of the back end, and did vfx for the pic.