David Fincher Produces Heavy Metal
Fight Club Director Updates 1981 Animated Movie For Paramount
Director David Fincher (Fight Club) will produce a Heavy Metal adaptation for Paramount Pictures. Movie will have nine connected stories, one directed by Kevin Eastman.
David Fincher, the director known for such dark, twisted films as Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac, is producing an animated Heavy Metal movie for Paramount Pictures.
According to Variety, the flick will feature eight or nine animated segments, each of which will be handled by a different director. All the directors are as yet unannounced, but Fincher will direct one of the segments, as will Heavy Metal owner and editor Kevin Eastman and Blur Studios owner Tim Miller. Blur Studios is handling the animation for what promises to be an R-rated feature film.
Before becoming the owner and editor of Heavy Metal, Kevin Eastman co-created the 1980's toy and movie phenomenon Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles. There is as yet no word on whether Eastman's spouse, B-movie actress, nude model and Heavy Metal 2000 star Julie Strain, will appear in his segment.
History of Heavy Metal
National Lampoon publisher Leonard Mogel discovered the French magazine Métal Hurlant (translation: "Howling Metal") during a business trip to France in 1974. He immediately brought the mag over to the USA, retitled it Heavy Metal, and translated what little there was of content into English. Due to the fact that the early volumes were previously printed in France and the writers and artists were already paid, meant that Mogel's initial costs were relatively low compared to other start-up mags.
The combination of sex, graphic violence, sex, sword-swinging barbarians, sex, dark fantasy, sex, busty women, futuristic worlds, sex, spaceships, sex, and busty barbarian women having graphically violent sex while swinging swords in spaceships over futuristic worlds catapulted Heavy Metal to the top of the magazine racks, and enraged family-values types who felt the mag shouldn't be marketed to those under the age of 18.
Despite, or perhaps because of, its lurid origins, Heavy Metal has built the careers of countless artists and writers, including Bisley (possibly the most iconic Heavy Metal artist), Milo Manara, Moebius, Terrance Lindall and Alex Ebel. Even more established artists, such as Robert Silverberg, H.R. Giger and acclaimed sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison, have also contributed to its pages.
Heavy Metal And Heavy Metal 2000
The first Heavy Metal movie, based on six stories that originally appeared in the magazine, became a cult hit in 1981 and, for a while, rivaled The Rocky Horror Picture Show for popularity at midnight screenings. The soundtrack for the 1981 movie featured such "heavy metal" musicians as Sammy Hagar, Journey, Stevie Nicks, Nazareth and Grand Funk Railroad.
In 2000, the magazine produced a straight-to-video animated sequel, either called Heavy Metal 2000 or F.A.K.K.2, which featured a story based on Eastman's 1995 graphic novel The Melting Pot, illustrated by Simon Bisley. Bisley designed the characters for the movie, which starred the voices of Strain, Michael Ironside and rocker Billy Idol. Despite promises that this flick would up the sex-violence-and-rock-n'-roll ante on the previous film, Heavy Metal 2000 was not nearly so well received as the first flick.
Fun Fact: Voice talent on the 1981 Heavy Metal movie included comedians and SCTV alumni John Candy, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman.
