Filming has begun in for the new cinematic adaptation of the Warren Ellis graphic novel, Red. The Summit Entertainment production started principle photography in Toronto this week, and with a strong cast and crew, it looks to find some of that sought after success in the world of comic book adaptations.

The film’s impressive cast features Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Academy Award®-winners Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ernest Borgnine, John Malkovich, Karl Urban (Star Trek, Lord of the Rings), Brian Cox (Super Troopers, Troy), Julian McMahon (Fantastic Four, Nip/Tuck), James Remar (Dexter, Battlestar Galactica) and Rebecca Pidgeon (The Unit, The Shield).

Legendary Pictures has obtained the rights to turn Gravel into a feature-length film adaptation of the popular comic series from Warren Ellis and Avatar Press. Ellis himself will be credited as an executive producer on the film, and he will handle the first draft of the script so that future draft writers will have a solid template to work from.

Gravel — which began in 1999 under the name Strange Kiss — follows Sergeant Major William Gravel, a British SAS soldier who is something of a modern day Mage, with skills in the dark arts of magic. Gravel is a hired hand who makes his living job-to-job from various client contracts to take on supernatural beings using his special abilities.

There were some big announcements this weekend at the Marvel Animation panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, the biggest of which had to be the line up for the Marvel Anime films. These films will be produced by Studio Madhouse, which been making some of the best anime for the last 25 years and had previously handled the artwork on the recent Hulk Vs. movie.

The four anime style films being made are Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men, and Blade. Comics writer Warren Ellis will handle the script for all four films. On hand at the panel was Madhouse Producer and Co-founder Masao Moruyama said that they will do everything in the power to get the films out as soon as possible.

The Iron Man and Wolverine films are scheduled to be out in (late) 2010, with the other two to be released presumably in 2011. Test animation for the Iron Man and Wolverine films was shown at the panel and it looks A-Maze-Ing! Ellis reported that the films are still in an early stage and he is actually still writing the Iron Man film. The Iron Man film will be set in Japan, and the preview showed Iron Man in a suit that looked very similar to the film suit as he battled across Tokyo. Ellis said that the Wolverine script will closely follow the Chris Claremont/Frank Miller miniseries from the 80’s. As a comics fan and an anime fan, I absolutely cannot wait for these.

Hotwire; Requiem for the Dead
#3 of 4
Written, Illustrated and lettered by Steve Pugh
Created by Warren Ellis and Steve Pugh
Radical Publishing, Inc.
Cover price: $2.99; On-sale date: May 2009

“Blue-Lights have started to penetrate the suppressor fields into the cities and are possessing the living. The living are being turned into “Ghost-Bombs,” capable of enormous damage. When the dead threaten the living, you call the police and they have a department of One to take care of the problem. The Detective Exorcist, Alice Hotwire.”

This is the foreword on this Warren Ellis and Steve Pugh created miniseries. Newcomer Radical Publishing is producing this comic, based on a story by Warren Ellis, which, judging by the intense, strange, vivid world and equally traited characters, is not hard to believe. Steve Pugh is handling the rest of the series though, by writing, illustrating and even lettering this futuristic/technological ghost/zombie story.

It’s tough picking up what’s going on at the beginning of the book without having read the first two issues of the miniseries, so I recommend you do so before reading this ish. The scene does slowly evolve and it shines on some very unconventional future ghosts. Or are they the dead that have been brought back to life through artificial intelligence? That may be a fine line no matter what.

Warren Ellis is a lot of things: comic book author, script writer, storyteller, unapologetic drunkard, and generally a badass. But, most people don’t realize he’s also a master of the 140-character message, also referred to as a ‘tweet’ on popular microblogging site Twitter, which allows its users to update a stream throughout the day. In Ellis’ case, he warns the scum that follow his updates about the dangers of unicorns, warns of unwanted genitalia contact, and threatens the well-being of Apple fanboys.

About a year ago we ran a similar article that sifted through Ellis’ message stream for the top ten best ‘tweets’, but honestly, it doesn’t do him justice. Below are another ten messages that only required looking at the last two months. But, lest ye still challenge my claim that Ellis is master and commander of microblogging, check out his full Twitter page, or better yet, venture on over to his personal site [warrenellis.com] to see some long-form examples.