Taika Waititi’s Next Comic Book Project Is Sci-Fi Masterpiece The Incal

Taika Waititi’s Next Comic Book Project Is Sci-Fi Masterpiece The Incal

As if coming off of Thor: Love and Thunder, a Star Wars movie, showing up in Free Guy, trying to get a Flash Gordon reboot off the ground, and about a zillion other things weren’t enough, Taika Waititi has now attached himself to an adaptation of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jean Giraud’s (aka Moebius) sumptuous ‘80s space opera The Incal.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Waititi will both direct and co-write the script for the movie, alongside What We Do in the Shadows and Flight of the Conchords collaborator Jemaine Clement and Peter Warren, with a first draft due by the end of the year. The Incal’s publisher, Humanoids, purportedly hopes that having Waititi, Clement, and Warren’s first draft before pitching the film for distribution will help smooth the process, as currently no film studio or streaming platform is attached to the project.

“The films and graphic novels of Alejandro Jodorowsky have influenced me and so many others for so long,” Waititi said in a statement provided to THR. “I was stunned to be given the opportunity to bring his iconic characters to life and I am grateful to Alejandro, Fabrice and everyone at Humanoids for trusting me to do so.”

Illustrated by the legendary French artist Moebius, The Incal is a grand space adventure where a private investigator, John Difool, finds himself thrust across the cosmos on a quest to save the universe after crossing paths with the mysterious titular artefact, chased by various factions who hope to harness its powers to guide and protect those who believe in it. The series, first published in 1988, was inspired by ideas Jodorowsky had while developing his doomed adaptation of Dune, and its success lead to the creation of the “Jodoverse,” the fictional shared universe where the writer’s future sci-fi works all took place.

We’ll bring you more on Waititi’s plans for The Incal as and when we learn them.