And the race to adapt every comics property for film and television continues.
Variety has announced that Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Jennifer Todd are producing an film adaptation of the superb DC Comics/Wildstorm series Sleeper for Warner Bros. According to the article, their production company Pearl Street Films has a first-look deal with the studio, which has brought in Shawn Ryan and David Wiener to write the adaptation.
Written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Sean Phillips, Sleeper was a series that ran for two "seasons" of twelve issues each from 2003-05. Set in the Wildstorm Universe imprint under DC Comics, the series centered around Holden Carver, a morally ambiguous character also known as The Conductor, who had the ability to absorb pain and trauma and release it onto others when touched. Under the direction of a man named John Lynch, Carver is placed undercover inside the criminal organization run by a supervillain known as TAO. However, Carver begins playing both sides against one another in the hopes of freeing himself from the situation and be with Miss Misery, one of TAO's lieutenants.
Ryan is best known as the creator and showrunner of The Shield, a drama series for FX that focused on police corruption. Wiener worked with Ryan on the ABC series Last Resort, which Ryan co-created, and also on season two of The Killing.
The project has been in the works since 2008, when Spider-Man director Sam Raimi and John Donen were producing through their company, Stars Road Entertainment. Tom Cruise was reportedly interested in the role of Holden Carver, but was not formally attached.