Film Rights to Terry Moore’s Echo purchased by Watchmen/Hellboy producer Lloyd Levin

Well, here we are, a couple of day before the Hollywood/comic industry love-in known interchangeably as San Diego Comic-Con, or Comic-Con international (seriously, does anyone know what we’re supposed to call it now.) It’s the time of year when all of the upcoming comic book movie adaptations are usually announced, or “leaked” to the public.

This latest deal was reported this evening by Variety:

“Watchmen” producer Lloyd Levin has acquired screen rights to “Echo,” a comicbook series by Terry Moore. Deal was six figures.

“Echo” tells the story of a photographer who is preoccupied with her personal problems until she gets doused by liquid metal from a military experiment gone awry. She discovers she can now harness the power of a nuclear bomb, and soon the military wants its walking weapon.

Levin also produced the “Hellboy” films, both with Larry Gordon. Levin is also a producer on the upcoming Paul Greengrass-directed Universal drama “Green Zone.”

Moore’s comicbook credits include the “Strangers in Paradise” series.

Comicbooks have never been hotter in Hollywood, especially after “The Dark Knight” dominated last year’s box office and Marvel has successfully set up its film division to launch its superheroes on the bigscreen, such as “Iron Man.”

But studios aren’t just interested in caped crusaders.

“Echo,” well, echoes more recent deals where studios are becoming more interested in non-superhero fare.

Chalk that up to successful graphic-novel adaptations like “A History of Violence,” “Road to Perdition” and more recent hits like last year’s actioner “Wanted.”

Dark Horse Comics has especially prided itself on setting up its non-superhero properties at Universal Pictures in an overall production deal (Daily Variety, March 14, 2008).

Tony Moore soon confirmed the news over on his blog, where he had the following to say:

It’s official. We have made a deal for the film rights to Echo with Watchmen/Hellboy producer Lloyd Levin. The deal was outed today by Variety. Needless to say, I’m very pleased about this. More details later but, my plan is to get Echo made as a movie, and SiP on tv (think HBO). This SDCC, my agent, Nick Harris, will start the push for SIP tv. Selling Echo will help because Echo is easy to explain, SiP isn’t. You have to read all of SiP to get it, and who wants to read a 2200 page story?

Meanwhile, Robyn and I are already in San Diego, getting ready for the convention. I haven’t seen the SiP Omnibus yet. Supposed to be at our booth tomorrow in time for the open. We have less than 200 left unsold before the show opens. We might sell all those here at SDCC. If you want one, now may be your last chance to order one online before they’re gone. Robyn is keeping track of orders online in order to know how many she can sell here at the show. I haven’t even seen this book from the printer yet and it’s almost sold out. They better be good, huh?!