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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Studio Scares Up Encore

What can you possibly do after “Sharknado”? Well, having conquered home entertainment with its campy feature about giant sharks that eat humans after being washed ashore, low-budget production house The Asylum is now getting into a new medium: graphic novels. The Burbank studio has published “17 & Life: Jailbait,” a comic book tie-in with its next film, set for release on DVD and video-on-demand this month. “Jailbait” stars Sara Malakul Lane as Anna Nix, a teenager sent to a juvenile detention center after killing her stepfather in self-defense. It’s a drama that’s different from the studio’s previous output, which has featured octopuses, zombies and other horror creatures. The comic follows the same storyline as the film, and was overseen by Gabriel Campisi, a film director and published author. Studio co-founder David Latt said if it’s successful, future studio films could be tied in with comic books. “It is not a big surprise. We are all big geeks,” Latt said. “We love the medium, but it is not what we do.” Campisi, who plans to direct a separate film for Asylum, assembled a team of four artists to produce the comic and then set about condensing a 100-page script to 22-pages of text and drawings – all in a tight two-month time frame. “So we had to pick and choose what worked best, what carried the story forward, what was essential, and what was expendable,” Campisi said. Latt and David Rimawi, the studio’s other co-founder, learned of the appeal of comic books to fans of Asylum’s movies at last year’s Comic-Con in San Diego. The studio’s limited edition “Monsters of The Asylum” comic book done by Arcana Comics in Portland, Ore., became one of the top giveaways at the convention, Latt said. That comic was special just for Comic-Con and not tied to any specific film. Yet, despite an “anything goes” image spawned by Asylum’s movie choices, the studio is actually conservative in taking on new projects as they are all self-financed – “Sharknado” came in at $2 million and “Jailbait” under $500,000. “We don’t jump in with both feet,” said Latt, pun possibly intended. So will other Asylum properties, such as the hugely popular “Sharknado” be given the comics treatment in the future? “If (“Jailbait”) works I see the potential for other titles to go out,” Latt said. “It appeals to the same fan base.” – Mark R. Madler

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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