It was only back in February that it was announced that Wes Ball would be directing an adaptation of the comic book series Harbinger, but now it seems a new name has stepped up to the helm. Deadline is reporting that Paul Downs Colaizzo is in talks to not only replace Ball as the director but also rewrite the project. Ball is said to be stepping down to focus on his Planet of the Apes movie.
Downs Colaizzo made his directorial debut with the 2019 indie comedy Brittany Runs a Marathon, which he also wrote and executive produced. The movie became hit at Sundance and was purchased by Prime Video. His other writing credits also include co-writing the pilot of the 2016 MacGyver reboot. Before getting into the world of film and television Downs Colaizzo worked as a playwright and had several of his original plays produced.
The film is set to be based on the Harbinger comic series from Valiant Comics. The comic takes place in a world full of Harbingers, a race of superhumans, where the most powerful among them is gathering an army to take over the world. The series focuses on a young Harbinger who joins a resistance group of other Harbingers and regular humans that are determined to save the world.
The Harbinger comics series was created by writer Jim Shooter and artist David Lapham and was published by Valiant Comics. The comic began its publication in 1992 and ran to 1995 for a total of forty-one issues. It was then rebooted by Valiant Entertainment with a new writer and artist in 2012 and ran for another twenty-seven issues before ending in 2014.
It has been a long and bumpy road to get a Harbinger film made. An adaptation was first announced by Paramount Pictures back in 2008 with Brett Rattner attached to direct, but the project never went anywhere. Then in 2015, Sony announced plans to make the film and eventually have it cross over on film with another Valiant property Bloodshot, with the latter getting a 2020 film starring Vin Deisel. This current adaptation under Paramount Pictures has been in development since 2019 with Ball first signing on back in February of this year. With Ball directing, it was announced the script would be written by Andrew Lanham (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). It is unknown at this time if, should he sign on to direct and re-write the script, Downs Colaizzo plans on using parts of Lanham’s original draft or starting over completely.
This film adaptation is being produced by Neal Moritz and Toby Jaffe for Original Film with Dan Mintz producing for Valiant Entertainment. The project is still in development at Paramount Pictures.
Stay tuned to Collider for any future updates on Harbinger.