After a bit of a struggle in development hell, the paranormal private investigator may finally get his chance to appear on the big screen.
“Cal is being developed at Universal for a feature movie,” Niles said. “They really get it and are letting us do the film as an R.” Criminal Macabre languished at other production companies where execs felt it should be PG-13. This baffled the writer. “I was like, have you read the comic? Theres not a lot of PG-13 stuff with Cal.”
Niles added that he recently had lunch with Dark Horse Comics head Mike Richardson – who is spearheading the effort to develop Criminal Macabre at Universal. “Something will happen soon,” Niles said. “Good news should come in the next six months.”
In the meantime, of course, you can find Cal McDonald in print. Dark Horse is re-publishing “Criminal Macabre” in a new collection and Niles is preparing more adventures for his character.