Slashers.....
You know the genre....
Some masked nut case chases down and creatively murders a group of attractive teenagers with poor decision making skills, who have unleashed the killer's repressed psychosexual anger.
These movies are associated with popcorn fun. They're low brow entertainment to take a hot date too.

But for Cassie Hack, this ain't no popcorn movie.
Cassie, the daughter of the notorious Slasher, the Lunch Lady, travels the world with her monstrous partner, Vlad, hunting and destroying Slashers where ever they may be, whatever form they may take.

DDP'S HACK/SLASH PICKED UP BY ROGUE PICTURES

According to Variety, Devil’s Due’s Hack/Slash has found a studio home. The trade reports that the Universal-based Rogue Pictures (the genre division of Uni’s Focus Features) has picked up the film rights to the series, created by Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli.

Todd Lincoln is slated to direct the film version, with Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter are producing. Martin Schenk will co-write the script with Lincoln.

The series stars Cassie Hack and Vlad. As Seeley explained: “Cassie Hack, our heroine is a teenage girl who survived an attack by a slasher...this one was called the Lunch Lady, and it turns out she was Cassie's mom! (dun dun DUN!) So, Cassie takes to the road to kill other Slashers before they can make piles of dead teenagers around America.

“Vlad is her partner...a big, malformed guy, who looks like a slasher, but is actually a nice fella. He wears a gas mask, wields machetes, and cracks more bad one-liners than Arnie. The series follows them on their Slasher hunt.”

The comic has proven to be Devil’s Due’s most popular home-grown property, with a handful of one-shots, a recent miniseries, the March2006-shipping "Hack/Slash: Trailers", and a stage version.

SOURCE

March 29 2006: Director talks HACK/SLASH movie

A match made in heaven? The comic book HACK/SLASH and a big feature film adaptation go together like peanut butter and chocolate, and as we first reported here, Rogue Pictures is developing a live-action interpretation of the popular Devil’s Due publication created by horror hound Tim Seeley. Blue-eyed beauty Cassie Hack is the titular heroine (“the slasher victim slashes back!” as one comic cover screams), a misfit of society pushing through life haunted by the memory of her mother—a now very deceased “slasher” known as the Lunch Lady—and hell-bent on ridding the country of those just like ma. Along for the ride is the mammoth malformed Vlad. Together this unlikely duo and their ever-growing fan base have experienced six print adventures and a Chicago stage adaptation. Now it’s time for them to kick some ass on the silver screen.

Making that happen is newcomer Todd Lincoln, who’s helming the feature for Rogue and co-scripting with Martin Schenk; the two previously penned a remake of THE FLY for Fox Searchlight before taking on this gig (as we reported yesterday). Currently in the throes of the screenwriting process, Lincoln firmly tells Fango that there’s no better time than now to bring HACK/SLASH to a theater near you. “Audiences are craving original movies,” he says. “I’m craving original movies. The best ideas are always the simplest, and HACK/SLASH is such a no-brainer. It’s just familiar enough and yet totally fresh. There is still time to save this decade and put the hair back on people’s chests.”

Lincoln goes on to emphasize his project will be an action-horror hybrid “with an emphasis on horror,” he says, alluding to the sprinkling of cross-pollinated genre flicks we’ve seen the last few years that have been full of brawn but lacked little fright bite. And for those devoted fans of the source material, Lincoln wants to assure the readership that they needn’t be worried. He’s keeping series creator Seeley and artist Stefano Caselli (HACK/SLASH: EUTHANIZED) close to the development process. And, yes, the film will feature an all-new Cassie adventure, but still give those unfamiliar with the HACK/SLASH mythos a quick origin recap. “That being said, we’re not wasting half the movie telling the origin story,” Lincoln says. “We’re cutting right to the chase. The film will begin in the middle of the action, about one or two years into Cassie and Vlad’s slashing adventures.

“Martin and I are going to stay very true to the tone and style of the comic,” he continues. “I‘m completely protecting what I and everyone else love about this comic and these characters. Cassie and Vlad aren’t heroes who have sponsors. They don’t wear the latest fashion. They don’t even have cell phones. They’re outcasts—ragtag secondhand heroes fighting on a shoestring budget. They’ll be hunting down and battling multiple slashers in the film. Different types of killers in different types of locations. We are creating all-new original villains as well as using one or two famous ones. Even though we are subtly laying the groundwork and building the mythology for the sequels, we are not holding anything back. The first movie is going to pack an f-ing punch and be able to stand on its own.”

Citing cinematographer Dean (HALLOWEEN) Cundey’s early work as “the best thing ever” (he isn’t wrong), Lincoln aims to draw upon sundry other influences to breathe life into HACK/SLASH, including his affinity for the sensational artwork that graced the big-box horror VHS packages of the ’80s, which warped an entire generation of evolving horror fans. “HACK/SLASH is going to put the fun and heart back into horror, reconstruct the genre and return it to its pre-SCREAM roots,” he says. “Characters will absolutely not be sitting around talking about slasher movies. The famous slasher movies never existed in the HACK/SLASH reality, but the slashers themselves do. The HACK/SLASH version of the United States includes a Haddonfield, Illinois, Springwood, Camp Crystal Lake and plenty of other places that I can’t mention yet.”

And for those cynics out there who think that studio interference is going to trip up Lincoln’s momentum along his journey, take this into account: Rogue Pictures is now haven to producer Andrew Rona, formerly of Dimension Films, the exec seen shepherding FEAST to completion during PROJECT GREENLIGHT’s third season. Word is, since his arrival at the production shingle, we can expect more edgy horror projects to come out of Rogue and less flicks like last year’s softened CRY_WOLF. “Rogue and I are not only on the same page [about HACK/SLASH], we’re on the same paragraph, sentence, and word,” Lincoln says. “Execs Andrew Rona, Alex Heineman and Andrew Deutschman have completely supported my vision and contributed a lot of great ideas. We assign each other homework. I will assign them TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, CHOPPING MALL, PSYCHO II and they will have me study certain details of NINJA SCROLL, FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER and THE SECRET OF NIMH, all of which I already own and love. HACK/SLASH is going to be a rollercoaster ride. I guess you could say I want it to move as fast and tight as the CLONE WARS cartoon series and look as killer as HALLOWEEN II.”

Rogue is aiming to release HACK/SLASH around Halloween 2007. For more on Lincoln, you can check out his official site here and download his early short films and music videos.

Source: Fangoria

July 2006: ALTER & ASKARIEH ON BRINGING HACK/SLASH TO FILM

Movie producers Daniel Alter and Adrian Askarieh are hacking and slashing away to get to the top of the comic book film adaptation with Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli’s Hack/Slash. They optioned the comic book and hired Todd Lincoln to direct and co-write with Martin Schenk. I got a chance to talk with the producers about their plans for the would-be franchise.

Newsarama: Daniel Robert Epstein: Let’s start at the beginning - who optioned Hack/Slash in the first place?

Adrian Askarieh: Before Danny and I were in business together fulltime, he called me and said, “Look. Devil’s Due is going to publish this incredible comic book series. You’ve got to look at it. It’s a horror project and it’s a movie already.” I like horror. I’m not as big a horror fan as Daniel is. I don’t live and breathe horror like Daniel does, but when he told me the concept about Cassie Hack, about this teenage girl who hunts slashers, immediately I said “That’s a movie.” This was about three years ago. Based on just pages that Devil’s Due had done and some of the stories that Tim Seeley had written and we looked at them and said, “This is phenomenal. We’ve got to be in business with this project.” So that was really our first piece of business that Daniel and I did together. He brought me Hack/Slash.

Daniel Alter: I’ve been courting Devil’s Due for awhile because they were on their way to be the next Dark Horse with licensed properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers and they’re doing Family Guy now. But I knew they were eventually going to have their own original intellectual properties the way Dark Horse did. I had built a relationship with [President and founder of Devil's Due Publishing] Josh [Blaylock] and he called me one morning and said, “Tim Seeley has this idea.” They pitched it to me and as Adrian said, I’m a huge horror buff. I go to all the midnight shows. I watch all these films countless times. So I loved it instantly. But the major litmus test was when I brought it up to Adrian, who is not such a horror aficionado. He goes, “This is great.” That sort of goes, “Okay. We have something more than just a horror film. We have something really special on our hands.”

AA: We felt we had a project that transcended the horror genre. It was going to get all the horror fans, but it was going to get even more people. So that was really the genesis of how this thing came about.

NRAMA: Danny, did you know Tim Seeley before?

DA: I met him through Josh. I had a close working relationship with Josh and Tim is their in-house number one artist. But my business and working relationship is with Josh. The first time I started speaking with him regularly was with Hack/Slash.

NRAMA: So it is your guys’ production company that optioned it.

AA: Yes, our production company, Prime Universe Productions and Alter Ego Entertainment optioned the project. As any journey in Hollywood begins with a project, you set about trying to add all the necessary elements to sell it to a studio and then make it. That’s where our journey began.

NRAMA: What was the selling point for Rogue Pictures?

DA: It’s actually very interesting because Hack/Slash was a very special case. We had a lot of different people come up to us when they found out we had it. From directors to writers, we actually had people approaching us about making this movie. We’d met with a lot of writers and directors and nothing quite fit. We felt that some of them didn’t have the right vision and for some of them there was a variety of reasons it wouldn’t have worked out. Then all of the sudden, Todd Lincoln approached us. He said, “Guys. I saw this thing at Comic-Con a couple of years ago. I went after it and they told me it was already optioned.” He was actually meeting us for a different project and he saw Hack/Slash on our wall and he asked about it. He said, “Guys. I love this project.” We liked Todd and saw his reel and we felt that he would be the guy to bring this to the screen. He had the right sensibility. He was passionate. On music videos we thought he had a very unique vision.

NRAMA: Is Todd doing The Fly remake before Hack/Slash?

DA: No, we’re his first priority.

NRAMA: What made you want to go with a guy who hasn’t directed a feature before?

AA: We had people come up to us that had directed several movies and they’re terrific directors.

DA: Who had done big blockbuster movies with big budgets.

AA: Todd just had a vision and a passion for the project, which we felt was uncanny and unmatched by anyone else. We saw his reel and we were blown away. He had a different approach to doing music videos. He had a different approach to telling a story within a three-minute confine of a time limit for his music videos. We just felt that this guy, if he implements that vision on a feature-film level, a 110 minutes worth, particularly with a project like Hack/Slash and a character like Cassie Hack, we just felt like “We’re in business.” People at Rogue who do this for a living and bet on directors for a living all felt the same way. Todd is a very unique character. We joke and we compare him saying he’s going to be the next Tim Burton. But he’s going to be the first Todd Lincoln. We just think he’s got a very unique vision and he just loved this character. Hack/Slash is all about Cassie Hack. You’ve got to get that character first.

DA: Between his take on the material and what we saw from his reel, the calling card that it was, and the way we just clicked with him personally, we knew he was the guy.

AA: Conceptually from day one, the idea of Hack/Slash is a movie, but you have to go from being a comic book to a feature. Nobody in it had the take and at first Todd was coming in for a general meeting. He happened to be a big fan of the property and said, “The project I really want to do is the one you guys already have, not one I can pitch you.” We perked up and sure enough, it was Hack/Slash. We said, “Okay. Let’s hear what he wants to do with it.” When we saw what he had in mind, we knew this was the guy. This was the perfect marriage of material with filmmaker.

Rogue is NBC Universal’s genre division. At Rogue we met with Andrew Rona, Alex Heineman and Andrew Deutschman who are terrific guys. We’ve been in this business I think together for a long time and when we met with Rogue and Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman and Andrew Deutschman, it just felt like they got the movie. They got the concept of Hack/Slash and realized that this thing could be an enormously successful franchise based on the core concept of the victim has turned the tables on the slashers. She actually seeks out and hunts slashers. We live in the era of MySpace and SuicideGirls and we feel that Cassie Hack will become sort of the ultimate teen anti-heroine. We hope that she can become a figurehead of a cultural movement among young women.

DA: Andrew Rona was at Dimension where they made Scream. I think that’s something noteworthy to mention because the way Scream deconstructs the genre, this project reconstructs the genre.

NRAMA: Just to play devil’s advocate, these are big words, big statements. How are you going to do that with the film being just two to three years away?

AA: I don’t want to discuss timelines because as you know timelines in the film business are so fluid. I’ve had a movie that’s been supposed to go in production for the last three years and it still hasn’t. You don’t want to really count your chickens before they hatch, but I will say this: we feel that we’ll be in theaters with Hack/Slash rather quickly. It’s not a $100 million movie. We’re in a company that doesn’t like to waste money or develop for the purpose of developing. We’ve got a great filmmaker on it and we have great support from the studio and this is a project that everyone’s excited about.

DA: Also the awareness of the property and project prior to even shooting is just so immense. We’re talking already about a panel this year at Comic-Con. This is before we’ve even started production.

AA: Again, keep in mind; we’ve got to make the movie first. You don’t want to put the cart before the horse, but we just feel that this film has many of the right elements to become a really interesting franchise within the genre. It’ll never be X-Men. It’ll never gross $122 million in four days, but we feel that this thing can compete within the horror genre pretty successfully.

DA: We can do the next Snakes on a Plane.

AA: Yeah, it could be the next Snakes on a Plane, but we just want it to be the perfect Hack/Slash movie. Right now we’re focused on pulling that off because without the first movie working, there will be no franchise.

NRAMA: I assume it was Todd’s idea for him to co-write the script.

AA: Todd is co-writing it with Martin Schenk and they both have worked extremely hard. We had an extensive treatment done prior to going to script and Todd and Martin worked extremely hard on getting it right before going to script. So yes, Todd is directing and co-writing the script with Martin Schenk.

DA: Martin wrote a novel that New Line bought a few years ago and he and Todd worked on The Fly remake together with Fox/Searchlight which Todd was also developing to direct. They’re writing a comic book series this year that’s going to come out from IDW in July.

NRAMA: I spoke with Tim Seeley not too long ago and he said that he doesn’t really want to be involved with the movie. How involved would you like him to be?

DA: Tim trusts Todd implicitly. I introduced them last year at Comic-Con when we had just got Todd on the project. They’ve became like blood brothers. Tim knows that the comic book is his creation and the movie is going to be Todd's vision. He’ll be as involved as he wants to. He’s not writing the script with Todd, but Todd has kept him in the loop completely with everything he’s done and there are even certain things that Todd and Martin have come up with that Tim wants to take and incorporate into the comic book series. Tim will be on set. We’ll make sure he’s one of the slasher victims covered in blood.

NRAMA: How about Stefano Caselli?

AA: The first thing I saw of Hack/Slash was the visuals of Cassie Hack with a machete in her hand and going up against a masked slasher. That’s still imbedded in my psyche. That was the impetus to us getting excited over this. What we want to do and what Todd and everyone at Rogue has been extremely aware and respectful to the fact that we want this film to look like the comic book with this character. So I think Stefano’s artwork and visuals are going to become a big part of the franchise.

NRAMA: In my conversation with Tim, he said that you guys aren’t going to use any stories direct from the comics. That you’re just going to come up with a totally original story.

AA: Yes and no. The origin of Cassie Hack is going to be literally lifted from the comic books. Obviously the character of Cassie Hack and her relationship to Vlad and her mother, the Lunch Lady is all in there. The adventure is something brand new for the movie, but it still has all of the pathos and the elements that make the book so special and have made it a cult favorite.

DA: It could just as easily have been the next graphic novel.

AA: You still have Cassie Hack’s origin story and the Lunch Lady and how she became who she is and why she hunts slashers.

NRAMA: What kind of person are you thinking of casting as Cassie?

AA: I think we’re looking at someone in their early 20’s. There are a lot of actresses that have expressed interest in this project through their agents. So we’re just going to wait until we get our script in shape and sit down with Todd and the studio and decide who’s going to be Cassie Hack. Whoever it will be is going to be a very special person because, as I said, we have very high hopes for this franchise.

DA: It’s pretty clear we’re not going to cast somebody out of Maxim or off a WB show. Cassie’s a strong character and you need a strong actor to fill those shoes. Todd doesn’t want anyone out of Maxim. He just wants a real actress to be in this part and we totally agree.

NRAMA: How much did the fact that the project is based on a comic book help convince the studio?

AA: Oh huge. It goes without saying. Comic books right now are the source material du jour of Hollywood. It’s much more of an easier conveyance to the buyer about what this picture’s going to look like and what the concept’s going to be.

DA: One of the hottest genres right now is horror and one of the biggest trends is comic book adaptations, so we’re going to fit the bill for both and the twains shall meet.

NRAMA: What’s going on with the comic books in Hollywood, do producers go the comic book store?

AA: Yes, they do. There are tons of people that we would categorize as Johnny Come Latelys, the Monday morning quarterbacks that try to get comic books left and right without really knowing what they’re getting. By the same token, there’s a lot of people in this business that grew up with comic books, loved them, they’re producers, they’re directors, they’re writers, they’re studio executives, they’re agents. They love comic books.

DA: We’re part of that group.

AA: We like to consider ourselves part of that group because I have over 22,000 comics. Danny has 5,000 comics. Comic books aren’t a trend anymore. I think they’re here to stay. They’re now a valid, legitimate source material, just like novels. As long as there are comic books being published, comic books will be used as source materials for film and television.

DA: The big Marvel and DC characters transcended being comic books years ago. They’ve become the equivalent of American mythology. They’re in our subconscious and our pop culture. That’s why movies like Spider-Man, X-Men, open so massively because it’s above and beyond the initial source material. But what you see with projects like Hellboy or Men in Black is that just because something hasn’t been around for 40 or 50 or 60 years and hasn’t been already adapted into cartoons and isn’t already napkins at a birthday party, is that a great idea is a great idea and great source material is great source material.

NRAMA: Can you guys talk about what would be your dream comic book movie?

AA: I would love to make the Kingdom Come movie.

DA: I would have loved to have made the Superman movie.

AA: We have picked up the rights to Loaded Bible from our friend Tim Seeley and we consider it an incredibly exciting challenge and an honor to get that movie made. We think that movie will be a blockbuster.

DA: It’ll be controversial but a blockbuster.

AA: It’s the Passion of the Christ meets Kill Bill.

Source: Newsarama

December 15th 2006: Comics Catch talks with writer/director Todd Lincoln

"One of the most popular comics series published by the Chicago based Devil's Due Publishing is writer Tim Seeley's love letter and lampoon of slasher movies, "Hack/Slash." So far the horror/humor series has been collected in two volumes Hack / Slash Volume 1: First Cut (Hack Slash) and the forthcoming Hack / Slash Volume 2: Death By Sequel which will be released in January. The Series follows Cassie Hack and her hulking partner Vlad as they travel across the country hunting supernaturally empowered serial killers or "Slashers."

Cassie and Vlad's adventures have inspired Rogue Pictures to adapt "Hack/Slash "as a feature film. Comics Catch was lucky enough to get an update on the development of the movie from it'swriter/director Todd Lincoln.

Comics Catch: What's the status of the script?
Todd Lincoln: It's tight, it's fresh and I'm ready to shoot this f***er. Fortunately, our team members at Rogue Pictures are not micro-managers. They're smart, decisive and true fans of the genre. Andrew Rona is the filmmaker's dream executive. When he feels it's right, he's not afraid to pull the trigger. We're moving fast while we're still ahead of the pack. Aiming to shoot Spring 07.
CC: Does the film adapt any specific Hack/Slash stories? If so which one and how loosely or faithfully does it follow the story?
TL: We're not adapting any specific storylines from the Hack/Slash comics, but we will touch on the origin story. That being said, this is not an origin story movie. It cuts to the chase and drops you in the s**t by minute one. The film will stay true to the style, heart and voice of the comics. Fans are absolutely going to get the Cassie and Vlad they know and love. Tonally, the movie is much more grounded and serious than the comic. There's a sprinkling of humor to balance the scares, but this will be a lean, vicious, blood-soaked, Hard R fright fest. The goal is to create the ultimate slasher film. Not just a love letter to slasher films, but a film that reconstructs, reinvigorates and elevates the genre.
CC: Any developments on the casting front?
TL: I can't say anything right now, but it's surprising who has shown interest. We've thrown around some names and some exciting names have been thrown at us. Cassie Hack is such an awesome character. She's a complex urban/suburban survivor. A smart, vulnerable, sympathetic, socially inept, real American girl. Cassie killed her own slasher mom and drives around the U.S. in a junker van hunting slashers with her only friend in the world, Vlad. These are challenging iconic roles that will create a star or transform an established star's reputation.
CC: Is there a tentative release date for the film?
TL: Spring '08. "

I'm thinking of starting a petition to get Seeley and Caselli to be the first slasher victims in the film. I think its only right that these two be in the film and have the honors of the first victims. Come on, who's with me here!

Source: Amazon Blog

Jan 2007: ELSTON GUNN’S Q & @ WITH FILMMAKER TODD LINCOLN ABOUT THE HACK/SLASH FEATURE FILM

Filmmaker Todd Lincoln is traveling from the land of short films, music videos and commercials to the world of features by taking on the task of co-writing and directing a feature adaptation of Tim Seeley's horror action comic HACK/SLASH ( Devil's Due Publishing ) for Rogue Pictures and Alter Ego Entertainment. The comic, the second volume of which is due to street January 17, follows female badass Cassie Hack and her colossal deformed sidekick, Vlad, who travel the nation hacking, slashing and giving evil killers a gruesome taste of their own bloodletting medicine. Lincoln, who also recently co-wrote IDW's ROAD TO HELL three-issue miniseries, is promising a return to the smart and scary Hard-R slasher flick with HACK/SLASH. When he's neither writing nor directing Lincoln is tending to the Tulsa Overground Film Festival for which he is the co-founder and director. The festival celebrates its tenth year in September.

Lincoln took some time to answer some questions for AICN.

Elston Gunn: Your website boasts your short films, music videos and ads.
How did you get involved with film in general?

Todd Lincoln: It had something to do with loving movies and hating math.

EG: Congrats on landing the feature adaptation of Tim Seeley's HACK/SLASH. How did that opportunity present itself?

TL: I bought the first issue of HACK/SLASH the day it hit the stands. I loved it and immediately saw it as a movie. I tried to option it from Devil’s Due Publishing, but the rights had already been snatched up by producers Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter. By an insane stroke of luck, it turned out that Adrian and Daniel were fans of my work and approached me about the project before I even knew that they were the ones who had optioned it. Around the same time, Andrew Rona at Rogue Pictures had contacted my agent Craig Gering at CAA to see if I had a project I was interested in doing. I went in to Rogue, slammed down the HACK/SLASH comics, told them that’s the movie people want to see and that’s the movie I want to make. We had a deal.

EG: What can fans of the HACK/SLASH comic, as well as those who know nothing about the story, expect from the film?

TL: They can expect a smart, scary, new-generation, blood-soaked, breast-laden, Hard-R frightfest with all the detail and character work of the best auteur films.

The heart of this movie is Cassie Hack. A real American teenage girl. Vulnerable, sympathetic, socially inept, driven by fate and circumstance to save and protect the type of people she hates. This is not Lara Croft, Aeon Flux or Wonder Woman. This is just a girl with a baseball bat, wearing bargain bin clothes, kicking a plastic soda bottle outside a Taco Bell. Cassie killed her own slasher-mom and drives around the U.S. in a junker van hunting slashers with her only friend in the world, Vlad.

Vlad is Chewbacca meets Hellboy meets Lenny from OF MICE AND MEN. A self-taught, rejected freak, germophobe, man-child. He’s logical, caring and protective with great fighting, technical and medical skills. He’s the voice of reason for Cassie. Cassie and Vlad are blue-collar heroes with no money, no style, no real training and no weapons supplier. They’re constantly on the hunt and on the run. These are rich, challenging, iconic roles that will create a star or transform an established star’s reputation.

HACK/SLASH fits in with and ties together all slasher films. The well-known slasher movies don’t exist as movies in Cassie’s reality. In HACK/SLASH, all fictional slashers and horror territories really exist. Haddonfield, Springwood (Elm Street), Bates Motel and Camp Crystal Lake are all real places in the America that Cassie and Vlad drive around in.

Tonally, the movie is much more grounded and serious than the comic. We’re playing this film straight, suspenseful, vicious and bloody. This is not a parody. This is not a self-aware, post-modern, campy retro-trip. The goal is to create something special. Not just a love letter to slasher films, but a film that reconstructs, reinvigorates and elevates the genre in the same way that INDIANA JONES, STAR WARS, TERMINATOR, JAWS, and KILL BILL did for their respective B-movie genres.

We’re going to make the slasher film scary again.

EG: What's it like trying to get inside the head of this character who killed her own homicidal mother?

TL: Easy.

EG: Are you retelling the origin or is this a brand new storyline?

TL: This is an entirely new adventure, but the film stays true to the style, heart and voice of the comics. Fans are absolutely going to get the Cassie and Vlad they know and love. We’ll touch on the origin story, but this is not an origin story movie. It cuts to the chase and drops you in the shit by minute one.

EG: Did Tim Seeley (creator of the HACK/SLASH comic) have any input on the script? What advice did he give you, if any?

TL: Even before I pitched HACK/SLASH, it was important for me to get Tim’s blessing and involve him as much as possible. I think the mistake of so many movies adapted from comics is that they completely ignore the original creators and original material. Tim and I first met at the San Diego Comic-Con and we instantly hit it off. We’ve become good friends. I call him throughout the process with updates and to bounce ideas around. The film and comic will perfectly compliment and inspire each other.

EG: Are you planning on more practical effects than CGI? Who is doing the effects?

TL: Practical effects all the way. I’ve got some personal favorite effects artists/houses. It’s still anyone’s game.

EG: Where are you now with the project, when will you start shooting and what is your target release date?

TL: We’re right where we should be. The script is tight, fresh and bloody. We’ve already got lots of interest from top talent and techs. We’re shooting late Spring ‘07. Hits theaters everywhere in ‘08.

EG: Between HACK/SLASH and the recent IDW comic miniseries you penned, ROAD TO HELL, you're obviously a fan of horror-action. What is it about putting the two genres together that interests you?

TL: I’m a fan of every style of horror and every kind of genre. Horror/Action just happens to be the right choice for these projects. ROAD TO HELL is actually Martin Schenk’s brainchild. I co-wrote the comic with him, mainly contributing some horror details and character moments. ROAD TO HELL is kind of like HELLRAISER meets ROAD WARRIOR as seen through Rod
Serling’s eyes.

EG: What films or comics are you looking to for inspiration?

TL: None. I’m purposely keeping an open mind and trying to protect the purity of HACK/SLASH itself. Sometimes the best thing to do is take a walk in a parking lot.

EG: How do you approach screenwriting vs. comic writing? Does one influence the other?

TL: They’re very different. Writing comics is much more difficult for me than writing screenplays. I have huge respect for comic writers. Screenwriting and comic writing definitely influence each other. I’ve been a life-long comic book fan. Over the years we’ve seen comics become much more cinematic and now I think movies could learn a thing or two from them.

EG: Let's talk a little about the Tulsa Overground Film Festival, which you co-founded. How was the festival born and what's your goal with it?

TL: Like all major cities, Tulsa needed a film festival. Shortly after high school my friend Jeremy Lamberton and I created Tulsa Overground to bring attention to the Tulsa scene, change people’s perceptions of cinema and loosen the notches of the Bible Belt. So far the plan is working.

Now in its 10th year, Tulsa Overground is an annual, three-night, international, non-competitive, non-profit film festival. It’s an all-ages, all-formats, all-styles, all-genres, anything-goes-showcase of the most innovative work from around the world. It’s a cinematic grab bag of first-time filmmakers, student directors, professional lensers and big name auteurs.

Overground is one of the largest film festivals out there. Over 1500 people a night attend the festival and its legendary afterparties. It has really become so much more than a film festival and has inspired a scene/style/movement. Kids buy and trade Tulsa Overground posters, stickers, buttons, t-shirts and panties. They make their own Tulsa Overground stencils and spray paint them on the sides of buildings and under their skateboard decks.

EG: Why do you only accept short films? Do you have plans to expand?

TL: Actually, we’ve always screened independent features (which we hand-pick), but we don’t currently accept feature submissions. The sad truth is that most independent features are just not cool, not innovative and not fun. They’re too damn stiff and long. Cinema snacks are the way to go. We receive about a thousand short films each year and I watch every single one of them no matter what.

EG: Any success stories from the festival since its inception?

TL: They’re all success stories. We don’t play favorites. We don’t give awards. We just give people a place to show their work.
Todd Lincoln's Official Website
Tulsa Overground's Official Website
HACK/SLASH Comics Webstore

Source: Aint It Cool

Megan Fox to play Cassie Hack?

Wolfen sent us a report from San Diego Comic Con that Transformers star, Megan Fox, may be playing Cassie Hack.

In the book Hack/Slash, Cassie Hack hunts and kills slashers with her only friend in the world, Vlad. They drive around the U.S. in a junker van hunting, baiting, killing slashers. The well-known slasher movies don’t exist as movies in Cassie’s reality. In HACK/SLASH, all fictional slashers and horror territories really exist. Haddonfield, Springwood (Elm Street), Bates Motel and Camp Crystal Lake are all real places in the America that Cassie and Vlad drive around in.

Source: Comicmonsters.

APRIL 2008: Rogue taps Marks for 'Hack/Slash'

Todd Lincoln to direct comicbook adaptation

Scribe Justin Marks has been tapped to tackle "Hack/Slash," Rogue Pictures' adaptation of the Devil's Due Publishing comicbook Todd Lincoln will helm. Comicbook, created by Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli, revolves around Cassie Hack, a young woman who travels the country and takes on homicidal maniacs and serial killers along the way. The actioner will be heavy on comedy and horror. Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, who most recently oversaw "Hitman" at Fox, will produce the project. The two have been building a rep setting up comicbook or vidgame-based projects at several studios, including "Lost Squad," also at Rogue; "Kane and Lynch" at Lionsgate; and "Spy Hunter" at Universal. They also have "Jonny Quest" at WB, based on the TV toon. Meanwhile, Marks is on a roll, landing high-profile comicbook, videogame and toy-based adaptations. He is scripting "Voltron: Defender of the Universe" for New Regency and Fox; "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" for Joel Silver and toymaker Mattel at Warner Bros.; and the Green Arrow actioner "Supermax," also at WB. He also penned "Street Fighter" for Hyde Park and Fox.

Source: Variety