Dive into the GENE POOL!

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Date: Thursday, June 28, 2001

He's been in the industry press a lot lately for waging a battle with Marvel over the rights to his creation, Blade the Vampire Hunter, but now Marv Wolfman is running the show with an all-new franchise. Co-created with fellow comic book writer Len (X-MEN, SWAMP THING) Wein, GENE POOL focuses on a team of reluctant superheroes who are pursued relentlessly and must band together to protect each other and survive.

The property is so highly regarded that Helkon International Pictures (HIP Films) has teamed with Tri-Pictures and Eagle Pictures to secure the motion picture rights. Wein and Wolfman are drafting the feature length screenplay based on their creation, drawing on their combined years of experience in the comic book and entertainment industries.

"Len and Marv gave the world some of the most memorable comic book characters and classic storylines during their years with DC and Marvel, including Wolverine, Storm, Nightwing, and CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS," says Lee Solomon of Helkon. "We see GENE POOL as the next big franchise opportunity in that genre. We are very excited to be in business with two of the best."

Talking with CINESCAPE, Wolfman pointed out that his paramount concern at this early stage is character development.

"Because the GENE POOL members are new characters, we're working very hard to make certain they are multi-layered from the beginning," says Wolfman. "We don't have 100+ issues of a comic to work them out and so we're spending our time up front to understand these characters, to know what they want, what they need and even what they fear. We're trying to make these very real people in a very real world and yet retain the fun [that] Len and I have done in our comics, from SWAMP THING to THE NEW TEEN TITANS."


Wolfman also has a website under construction, http://www.marvwolfman.com, which currently features some news and a tantalizing tidbit about his original plan for resurrecting the Barry Allen Flash following the events of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.