Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn quietly announced at last month's Cannes Film Festival that he's working on an adaptation of the graphic novel, The Incal. However, word has just finally made it's way over to the US. Chances are that if you're young or youngish, you're most likely unaware of the incredibly influential sci-fi comic book series that debuted in 1981. To add some context in many ways, The Incal is similar to John Carter or Neuromancer, in that its a trailblazer of its genre that's seen many of its concepts and ideas utilized in other, more recognizable works of fiction. If you're looking for a point of reference for The Incal, think The Fifth Element (coincidentally the creators sued the producers of The Fifth Element for infringement). Many have speculated previously that The Incal is an unfilmable piece of literary fiction.
RELATED CONTENT:
Nicolas Winding Refn's BUTTON MAN Adaptation Moving Forward With Screenwriter
Director Nicolas Winding Refn Discusses Wonder Woman in Empire Magazine Live Chat
The Incal is a set of science fiction comic book series written in French by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Moebius and others.The story begins in the dystopian capital city of an insignificant planet in a human-dominated galactic empire. (The Bergs, aliens who resemble featherless birds and reside in a neighboring galaxy, make up another power bloc.) DiFool receives the Light Incal, a crystal of enormous powers, from a dying Berg. The Incal is then sought by many factions: the Bergs; the corrupt and decadent government of the great pit-city; the rebel group Amok; and the Church of Industrial Saints (commonly referred to as the Techno-Technos or the Technopriests), a sinister technocratic cult which worships the Dark Incal. Animah (an allusion to anima), the keeper of the Light Incal, seeks it as well.