WIRE Buzz: Jason Bateman directing Superworld; Millarworld's Reborn still birthing; more

Jason Bateman has something super in the works. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Outsider actor will be teaming up with screenwriter Mark Perez to adapt Superworld, an Audible-exclusive audiobook written by Gus Krieger. Bateman will direct the film project, with Perez writing. The duo previously worked together on the 2018 comedy Game Night, which Bateman starred in and produced.

Superworld, which was released this summer, takes listeners to the year 2038, where every person on Earth has superpowers now, except for Ignatius Lohman, whose father is one of the most powerful people on the planet, and the leader of Peerless, a defense organization. However, things change when a new villain emerges, one whose power is to neutralize anyone else with a superpower. Suddenly, Lohman is no longer just a guy stuck in a white-collar job. He's now the planet's only hope.

It's the latest adaptation that focuses on what it's like to live in a world where superpowers exist, not unlike Netflix's The Umbrella Academy or Amazon's The Boys, though according to THR, the project has been likened more to Pixar's The Incredibles. 

No release date has been scheduled for the movie. Superworld is available now for purchase on Audible.

It's been a while since we've heard anything, but Netflix's adaptation of Reborn continues to move forward. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Sandra Bullock-produced, Chris Miller-directed adaptation of Mark Millar's 2016 comic has found a writer in Bek Smith (Captain Marvel). 

The sci-fi fantasy comic — written by Millar (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and illustrated by Greg Capullo (Batman) — explores the idea of what happens to a person after they die, with this particular story centering on Bonnie Black, an 80-year-old woman who dies in a New York hospital only to wake up as a younger version of herself in the fantasy realm of Adystria. There she's reunited with all her friends and loved ones, with the exception of her husband, who passed away before her. So with the help of her late father and childhood dog, she sets off in search of him.

Reborn is part of Netflix's Millarworld deal, which grants the streaming platform access to the company's long list of titles, all of which have been created by Millar, as well as the potential to have him create and develop new ones.

Millar and Capullo will serve as executive producers on the project. Vertigo Entertainment's Roy Lee and Miri Moon are also producing the film, along with Samantha Nisenboim. 

No release date has been announced for the project. 

And finally, in some more audiobook-related news, Podium Audio, an independent audiobook publisher, has cast Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian, Far Cry 6) and Eric Dane (The Last Ship) in one of its upcoming productions, an adaptation of Hell's Horizon, a novel by Richard Fox and Jonathan Brazee.

Published by Grand Central Publishing, the military sci-fi tale is narrated by two different characters, Army Major Emil Richter (Dane) and Marine Captain Mateo "Teo" Alcazar (Esposito), as they record their diaries while at war with each other on a battlefield far from Earth.  

And that's not the company's only foray into science fiction. It will also produce an audiobook for Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira by Lou Diamond Phillips (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), the actor's first-ever novel, which comes out later this year and is published by Aethon Books. 

Tinderbox tells the story of Everson, a soldier who is stranded on an enemy's planet after a battle against them goes wrong. He's pursued by traitors who want to use him to overthrow their king by retrieving a piece of ancient technology known as the "Tinderbox." However, when he runs into the princess, whose life is also in danger, sparks begin to fly. 

The audiobook will be narrated by voice actor R.C. Bray (The Martian audiobook) and Julia Whelan (NCIS). 

Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira hits shelves on Oct. 20.