Metal Hurlant Chronicles Gets Picked Up by SPT

PARIS: Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has picked up the sci-fi series Metal Hurlant Chronicles—which creator and director Guillaume Lubrano tells World Screen Newsflash is based on the French anthology graphic novels of the same name—for its pay-TV networks in a host of European countries.

The first season of six half-hour episodes will be delivered at the start of 2012 in French and English. SPT acquired the rights for its pay-TV networks in Central Europe—Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Moldova—as well as in Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking territories in Luxembourg.

WE Productions is the French company responsible for transforming the comics into a full TV series. Creator and director Guillaume Lubrano tells World Screen Newsflash that the goal has been to "do a true and faithful adaptation of the original comics. We are using the original comics as storyboards for each episode, because we want it to be as close as possible to the original," incorporating elements of action, heroic fantasy and science fiction.

The show is described as in the lineage of series such as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and with the look of movies like Sin City or Watchmen. "In movies like Sin City or Watchmen, you had the feeling to see some comicstrip you had read come to life, well we will try to achieve the same feeling with Metal Hurlant," Lubrano says. He notes the broad appeal the series presents as well: "We will have interest from the people who know the French magazine and those stories, but since it’s sci-fi we will also have appeal for the younger audience."

Metal Hurlant Chronicles is represented by The Licensing Machine, a division of Panini UK.