Encouraged by the positive response to the Ben Affleck/Batman redesign, Warner Bros. has immediately set about finding other ways it can update other DC Comics properties with the Affleck features users demand. Variety reports that overhaul will begin with Sleeper, an adaptation of the DC/Wildstorm title that had languished in an increasingly outdated Sam Raimi/Tom Cruise version for years before being overhauled as a film for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to produce. The Ed Brubaker comic, which ran from 2003 to 2005, concerns a sleeper agent working undercover inside a criminal syndicate, who is given special powers that make him impervious to pain and able to heal himself, after being fused with an ancient alien artifact—a story that Tom Cruise obviously connected with, for reasons that certainly have nothing to do with anything potentially libelous. Affleck and Damon have commissioned The Shield’s Shawn Ryan and The Killing’s David Wiener to draft a new screenplay, which will draw upon their respective familiarity with stories involving people secretly pursuing their own agendas, and struggling with moral issues while wearing a turtleneck.
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