MONSTERPOCALPYSE: Burton & August Teaming Up Again

The Hollywood Reporter’s – Heat Vision has exclusively reported that John August is in negotiations with DreamWorks to write the studio’s feature film adaptation of MONSTERPOCALYPSE, a strategy game played with collectible miniature figures.

…the latest development raises the possibility that August will re-team with Tim Burton, whom DreamWorks has been wooing to take on the project as its director. DreamWorks, which grabbed film rights to the MONSTERPOCALYPSE property last month, hasn’t yet nailed down the ALICE IN WONDERLAND billion-dollar man. Talks are, however, ongoing.

Now read what John August had to say over on his official site:

As announced today, I’m going to be writing a big movie version of Monsterpocalypse for DreamWorks, based on Matt Wilson’s kaiju-themed giant-monsters-smashing things extravaganza. Wilson’s creation, published by Privateer Press, imagines the modern world under siege by super-sized creatures of every stripe. Giant apes, terrasaurs, planet-eating extraterrestrials? Check, check and check.

Plus robots. C’mon. You need robots.

Many of the elements are still being locked down, so there’s obviously a lot I can’t say about the movie yet: the plot, the players, what the humans are doing in all of this. Will every possible monster be in it? Logic would say no, but I can’t give you a list. What I can talk about is why the project is getting announced today, while so many others are kept under wraps.

August continued with:

As detailed in the article, Monsterpocalypse potentially affects many other tent pole movies at other studios in a way that’s certainly newsworthy. And while I’m hardly the biggest element in this, Monsterpocalypse will take me off the market for a year or so, and make it pretty much impossible for me to direct a movie in the near future.

So an article was going to be written regardless. Announcing the project allowed DreamWorks the chance to have some control over how the story got out. That’s the main and best reason to announce something.

Monsterpocalypse has been the fastest a movie has come together in my career, and I’m ridiculously excited to start writing it. But I’m also ridiculously excited to be writing the other things I’m working on, most of which have been kept very quiet.