As the New York Comic Convention started this Thursday, I was able to get a interview with Vlad Yudin, a Russian filmmaker and producer, who is making Head Smash, a film based on a comic book that Vlad Yudin created himself.
Edwin Mejia, who is producing the film with Vlad Yudin, stated that, “We are basically working on this great visionary piece that Vlad Yudin created with Arcana Comics. Arcana Comics is behind great iconic comics and novels-and Sean O’Rielly is one of the producers on the project as well. Vlad is actually the creator and we’ve been putting this project together for over a year now, and we’re really excited to actually have a first edition feature here today here at Comic-con. So we’re really really excited. .. . Right now, we’ve been putting together the script and making the process with the studios to figure out what the exact start date is going to be and as soon as the actual graphic novel is completed, we’ll start casting. “
The actual comic book hasn’t been finished yet, and when asked to elaborate, Mejia said, “It hasn’t been finished yet; we’ve been working on this for about 6 months, centralizing the art, the characters, and the illustrations. Vlad has been putting together the characters with Dwayne Harris, who is the illustrator, making sure that the characters are exactly like the ones that he had envisioned. We plan to finish the graphic novel in the next 3 or 4 months and have a big feature at San Diego, and we also plan to have a digital release in February of the first 3 editions. .. . . In my perspective, it’s a story of revenge, ass-kicking, betrayal, love, salvation, loss of hope- it’s all in there. It’s really a gritty story, a well ‘conceptionalized’ story; it’s more than just a graphic novel, its intellectual property, a piece that people will follow for years to come. Smash is a character that’s very quiet, but he’s also very likable and vulnerable- grows up in a orphanage, and takes salvation with the Horde, which is a brutal syndicate that he thinks is a great organization, and ends up being betrayed by the same group he’s actually pleaded his alliance to. The story takes on from there, where he’s on a quest to find the love of his life, which is his wife, Lela, and his son. Unfortunately, he goes through a lot of trials and battles to get to the point where he can actually get his family back together. It’s a really great story, people will be able to identify with the story and with the character.
Vlad Yudin stated, “Head Smash is basically a story of a person named Smash who gets betrayed by this organization, Horde, which he’s working for. And the story is basically him going on a rampage of revenge against his former employer basically, figuring out why he was betrayed and why his pregnant wife was kidnapped by the guy who he considered to be a mentor. So it’s really a puzzle and it’s fueled by a lot of action and a lot of great visuals. Right now we are unveiling the first 10 pages of the graphic novel. . . The comic book itself is actually finished, while the visuals are being put together as we speak and right now we have the first 10 pages and we have the other pages following along. So, we have the whole story down which makes it pretty easy to write the screenplay.. . . We’re really excited about the movie and the comic novel as well.. . .I created the story and the script for the comic book and then Eric Hendrix who helped with the screenplay from the comic book and Dwayne Harris was the illustrator and designer. I wanted to create something that’s very gritty and this is definitely it- it takes part in this really gritty city and this society is all about corruption and gang war basically, and in that environment is where you have the story take place. Filming should start in the second half of next year.”
Yudin is also working on Generation Iron, which is, “basically the modern day pumping iron film. It’s from the same producer Jerome Gary, who produced the original Pumping Iron film thirty years ago. The same people are in the production and in the film, and it’s really a fantastic and dynamic film. We’re still shooting, we’re almost done and it’s looking really interesting.”
Expect to see the full graphic novel series to come out in February or March, and the film to finish by 2014.
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