Bluestone Entertainment has secured the rights to the Joe Hill dark comedy horror comic and has tapped Lyonne and Ana Lily Amirpour for the project.
Natasha Lyonne has been tapped to produce and star in the adaptation of Basketful of Heads, which is a comedic horror comic series from DC’s Hill House label. Lyonne is set to be directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, known for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, as she helms the project from a screenplay that she wrote. Bluestone Entertainment had secured the rights to the comic property and will be putting up the money for the dark comedy action horror film, with Akiva Goldsman and Greg Lessans producing for their company, Weed Road, alongside Director of Development Shiva Nassab.
According to Deadline, the “seven-issue series created by New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill (The Black Phone), and illustrated by Leomacs, Basketful of Heads watches as June discovers that every bad guy she decapitates leaves a talking head behind. With every kill, June adds a new voice to her twisted Greek chorus — and another eight pounds of literal baggage.”
Lyonne will be producing for Animal Pictures. Animal Pictures’ EVP of Film and Television Dannah Shinder is also on board as an executive producer. Additionally, Animal’s Creative Executive Max Ferguson oversees the production. Richard Saperstein, Brooke Saperstein, and Annie Saperstein are also credited to produce the horror comedy for Bluestone Entertainment, with Beau Turpin exec producing for the company.
Lyonne shared in a statement that she’s “thrilled to work with the ingenious auteur Ana Lily Amirpour on such beloved IP and so grateful that Akiva and Bluestone brought it to us at Animal to develop. This one’s gonna be a knockout!” Amirpour would also state, “I’m very excited to team up with the wickedly funny and brilliant Natasha Lyonne to adapt this comic into a film. We’re going to bring to life a new type of antihero who gets pulled into a bizarre adventure that unleashes something inside her and turns her life inside out. It’s gonna be darkly funny, surreal and bloody as hell.”
Meanwhile, Lyonne can also be seen in another comic adaptation this year — The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The official synopsis for The Fantastic Four: First Steps: Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/The Thing as they face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.
