Some twenty-odd years after their debut, could Valiant’s mismatched heroes Archer & Armstrong be coming to the big screen? According to The Hollywood Reporter, the answer is yes and the religious cult-filled, high octane buddy comedy is heading to the big screen with a script from BenDavid Grabinski (Enormous, Cost of Living) and producers Sean Daniel, Jason Brown, and Valiant CEO Dinesh Shamdasani.
Although originally created in 1992 by Jim Shooter, Bob Layton, and Barry Windsor-Smith, the film will be taking its cue from Fred Van Lente and Clayton Henry’s run on the book, which offers updates to the Valiant 1.0 version of immortal hedonist and occasional hero Aram Anni-Pada, a.k.a. “Armstrong”, and cult-raised adaptive martial artist Obadiah Archer. In the current continuity, Archer is brought up by an arm of the Sect, one of the many (many) secret organizations of the Valiant universe, tasked by his ultra-conservative family to kill the hard-to-kill Armstrong. In the tradition of the greatest superhero team-ups, the two realize that they should be fighting another enemy and end up taking on not only Archer’s family but the Sect itself.
The project joins the Bloodshot film by X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn at Sony along with Shadowman by J. Michael Straczynski with Sean Daniel Company on Valiant’s feature film slate. Archer & Armstrong would make a lot of sense in this mix in the way that Iron Man offers different shades of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Captain America or Thor. Whereas Bloodshot is a paranoid sci-fi/military thriller (with lots and lots of blood and guns), and Shadowman is a moody peek at the supernatural side of the Valiant Universe, Archer & Armstrong offers goofy, biting, and sometimes slightly on-the-nose commentary about modern society featuring an Odd Couple of badasses.
Now the question is who would be right to direct? I hear Edgar Wright is available.
Oh, and if you’d like to know what Van Lente thinks about the series he helped resurrect, you can read his exit interview with Dan Casey, as he mulls over his final arc, “American Wasteland.”
[Source:Â The Hollywood Reporter]
