Since 2005, you can randomly turn your TV to Cartoon Network and there’s a good chance you’ll either catch an airing of the animated series Ben 10, or at least a commercial for the show’s many spinoffs. Joel Silver has been trying for a while now to get the popular show adapted for cinemas, and now a writer has been hired to rewrite a script already written by someone else. That counts as progress, right?
According to The Hollywood Reporter, fresh talent Ryan Engle will be taking over writing movies for Silver Pictures’ big-screen Ben 10, working off of a script from Albert Torres, who was brought on to the project a little over a year ago. Engle’s name is gaining buzz as he’s just finished working with Silver providing on-set script duties for Jaume Collet-Serra’s thriller Non-Stop, as well as being signed on to write the adaptations of the classic giant monster video game Rampage and Jimmy Palmiotti’s post-technological apocalypse comic book The New West. He first gained recognition for his Black List script On A Clear Day, which is still in development.
Ben 10 was created by the “Man of Action” supergroup consisting of writers Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle, and tells the story of Ben Tennyson, a ten-year-old who finds a powerful watch called the Omnitrix that grants him the power to turn into ten different kinds of aliens, each with their own set of abilities. This power allows him to battle other aliens and random creatures bent on world domination.
There have already been four animated TV shows, two animated TV movies, two live-action TV movies, seven video games, and a legion of toys and other tie-in products for the series, so something tells me Silver is more interested in cashing in on this multi-billion dollar franchise than in the artistic integrity of the animation. Expect to hear more about the Ben 10 movie in the months to come.
