The Movie Drafted Will Ask, What If You Were Conscripted To Fight Aliens?
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We scrappy Earthlings have been tussling with aliens for decades now…at least in our imaginations. Whether it’s Earth’s own natural defenses taking down Martian invaders in H.G. Wells’ The War of the World or Johnny Rico and company blasting bugs in Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, science fiction is forever examining how our own warlike nature would hold up when confronted with alien enemies. Now another of those stories is headed for the small screen, as Marc Powers’ comic series Drafted is being developed into a potential feature film.
First published in 2007 by Devil’s Due Entertainment, Drafted imagines a future where mankind has made first contact with an alien species…but our new cosmic neighbors have got some really bad news for us. Specifically, that there’s a massive intergalactic invasion on the way, and mankind can either join the fight to help or look forward to being obliterated by those invaders. That’s the sort of threat where desperate actions are needed, so men, women, and children alike are drafted into the fight, and that fight goes well. But in its aftermath, as Deadline puts it, the “humans learn they may have been helping the wrong side all along.” Whoops.
Drafted is being developed by Benderspink Productions, teaming with Powers and Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock. Benderspink’s JC Spink said, “I’ve loved this property for seven years now, “and am so glad to be able to help make something happen for it in film.”
Oddly, the Drafted comic series itself is getting rebooted in 2015, with Powers set to write new issues. Deadline’s story doesn’t say whether this reboot was planned prior to the Benderspink deal or if it’s being put in play specifically to accompany the property’s film development. Either way, having a successful new iteration of the comic would be a nice bonus should Drafted actually succeed on the big screen and launch the sort of franchise producers and studios are always thirsting after.
Mainly, though, all this talk of interstellar combat just makes me wish we’d get some sort of update on Steven S. DeKnight’s hugely intriguing Starz project Incursion. But since he’s busy with Daredevil these days, I have a feeling that’s been shifted to the back burner. Maybe a reboot of Space: Above and Beyond?
