‘Hellsing’ Live-Action Adaptation Coming From Amazon Studios And ‘John Wick’ Writer
Hellsing lives again… in live-action.
If you are a millennial, you probably have heard about (or watched) Hellsing at some point in your life. The iconic action-horror manga by Kouta Hirano found lots of international success as an anime in the early 2000s and later with Hellsing Ultimate, an OVA series which stuck closer to the manga. The story follows Alucard (a reimagined Dracula), a special agent bound to The Hellsing Organization, under the leadership of Integra Hellsing, great-granddaughter of Abraham Van Hellsing, to aid them in their mission to protect England and the world from vampires, ghouls, and other supernatural threats. It sounds heavy metal because it is heavy metal.
Now producer Mike Callaghan has secured the rights to the manga and teamed up with Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious, Sinister) and Amazon Studios to develop a live-action film adaptation. Derek Kolstad, the writer behind the first three John Wick entries (there are two more in pre-production), is set to pen the bloody script.
Callaghan said in a statement:
“I’ve always loved the vampire genre, especially when a creator is able to put their own unique spin on it, so when Derek introduced me to Alucard and the Hellsing Organization, I knew we had something special in that tradition… Kouta Hirano’s gonzo reimagining of the Dracula-Van Helsing mythology is an exhilarating, quirky mashup of action and horror that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. We are incredibly excited to partner with Brian and Fred at Automatik and that Amazon is on board to help us bring the wit and madness of ‘Hellsing’ to life on screen.”
The feature will be produced by Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger of Automatik, Mike Callaghan and Reuben Liber of Ranger 7 Films, Jason Lust of Soluble Fish Productions, and Kolstad himself. Gemma Levinson is the executive on the project from Automatik. Executive Producers are Tetsu Fujimura of Filosophia, India Osborne, Pierre Buffin, and Jason Speer.
Kolstad has found large amounts of success after the John Wick films cracked the box office and rewrote the on-screen approach to physical action. So far, his scripts have been quick-witted and brutally honest, so I can see why Hollywood currently has the hots for him.
Among other projects, Kolstad has a Splinter Cell animated series coming up, and he recently started developing a Dungeons & Dragons live-action series that is apparently unrelated to the upcoming film helmed by Game Night‘s John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein.
Francisco J. Ruiz is that guy who has watched Jurassic Park a thousand times and loves Star Wars. His hunger for movies is only matched by his love for video games. He graduated in English Studies from the University of Malaga, in Spain. As he keeps writing about what he enjoys (and doesn’t) for websites all over, he’s continuing his studies.
