Lionsgate is making a movie out of a Night of the Living Dead comic book spinoff

Z-Men is a comic book about a pair of disgraced government agents trapped in the middle of an undead outbreak. But this is no mere zombie apocalypse: Z-Men is nominally set during the zombie apocalypse, the one filmed by George Romero in his wildly influential Night of the Living Dead. The film has been in the public domain practically since its release; last month, Double Take Comics actually launched 10 different ongoing series all set in the town featured in Night of the Living Dead.

If this sounds like a shameless pyramid-scheme gambit to construct a marketable linked universe using pre-existing Intellectual Property and hip apocalypse tropes: It is, and it worked!

The second issue of Z-Men has only just hit stores, but today Lionsgate announced that the studio is partnering with Double Take on a Z-Men film adaptation. Double Take is a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, the videogame company that is also partnering with Lionsgate on an attempted Borderlands bigscreen adaptation.

It’s likely that Lionsgate wants Z-Men to be an ongoing zombie series unto itself. On the cusp of the final Hunger Games release, the studio has been ramping up its franchise game: Greenlighting sequels to Now You See Me and John Wick, praying for a Last Witch Hunter saga, even considering a sequel-spinoff to Sicario.