Tales of the Farm, the first volume of Jeff Lemire’s award-winning graphic novel triology Essex Country (Top Shelf), has been picked up to be adapted into a feature film by producers Steven Gilder and Alec Chorches. Although the project is a long way from being greenlit, it has a script by John Car, and John Dykstra, visual effects supervisor of the new film X-Men: First Class, is attached to the project as director.
Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros said the project “is very early in the process but there’s a director,” emphasizing that “there’s still no actors attached.” Staros said the project was picked for development by Rhythm and Hues Studios and that there is a script adapted from Tales of the Farm by John Car. The film is being produced by Gilder and Chorches and Top Shelf productions.
Staros said the script for the film has been developed under the title Super Zero. “They’ve been working on it for a while,” he said while cautioning that "there’s still a long way to go.” Tales of the Farm is the story of a 10 year old boy coping with the death of his parents by escaping into fantasy games with a retired pro hockey player. First published in 2008, Tales of the Farm won the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the triology went on to win the Doug Wright Award, the Joe Shuster Award and other prizes. Originally three volumes, The Collected Essex County trilogy is now available from Top Shelf as giant 500 page single volume edition.
