In the future, all movies will be about the future—specifically a dystopian future where a world ravaged by wars, environmental disaster, and corporate ruthlessness is saved from total collapse by a reluctant antihero. It’s almost as though America is a wee bit pessimistic right now. Anyway, you can add Paramount’s Last Man Standing to the in-development slate of we’re-all-fucked films that already includes the next couple of Mad Max sequels, Sam Raimi’s “sci-fi Wyatt Earp” thing, Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion etc.: According to Deadline, the “Comic-Con sensation” graphic novel was pretty much the talk of San Diego after selling out within two hours, and now it’s on its way to being a new comic book series for Heavy Metal Publishing, while Paramount also rushes it into development as a “multiplatform franchise property.”
So what’s it all about? According to creator Dan LuVisi, Last Man Standing (not to be confused with that poorly received, Bruce Willis-starring remake of Yojimbo) is summed up thusly:
“[It] takes place 600 years in the future, in an alternate universe and is about Gabriel, this invincible soldier, who's been created to help win a war Earth got itself too deep into with Mars. After Gabe wins the war, he comes back down to Earth and is celebrated as this incredible hero. From there, he becomes somewhat of a celebrity, a Superman of this story, but then it all takes a quick turn. Gabriel is framed for an atrocious crime, by a terrorist organization known as Pandemonium and their leader, Dante. He is then sent to Level-9 Facility, where he'll spend the next nine years in the worst prison of all time. Once Gabriel breaks out, only then does his true story begin, and the lies and twists unravel.”
Adding to those twists: Rather than begin with a traditional first issue, Last Man Standing actually kicks off with “a 230-page bible of a book, Killbook Of A Bounty Hunter, that sets up the entire universe of the LMS world.” So it sounds like there’s plenty of room within this property for all that multiplatform franchising promised above—maybe even enough to sustain us until that apocalypse everyone keeps talking about.