Comicbook ‘Bloodstrike’ heads to bigscreen – Entertainment News, EXCLUSIVE, Media – Variety

The vampire soldiers of “Bloodstrike” are heading for the big screen, with the comic book property set up with Adi Shankar’s 1984 Private Defense Contractors.

Producers on the project are Shankar, “Bloodstrike” scribe Rob Liefeld and Liefeld’s manager Brooklyn Weaver (“Out of the Furnace”).

Liefeld’s new angle, aimed at creating a franchise appeal, focuses on a Bloodstrike unit consisting of a team of super-soldiers who have secretly been imbued with vampire blood — making them an elite strike force feared by all enemies. The property launched in 1993 via Image comics and sold over 30 million copies.

Shankar’s shingle has tapped Dutch Southern to write an all-female riff on “The Expendables” and co-financed Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey,” Marc Forster’s “Machine Gun Preacher” and Andrew Dominik’s upcoming Brad Pitt-starrer “Killing Them Softly.” Shankar is partnered with Spencer Silna in the company.

Liefeld (“Deadpool”) was a co-founder of Image Comics in the early 1990s, which launched with his “Youngblood” series.

Weaver is the topper of Energy Entertainment.

via Comicbook ‘Bloodstrike’ heads to bigscreen – Entertainment News, EXCLUSIVE, Media – Variety.