Variety is reporting that David Goyer (Blade Trinity, The Invisible) will direct an adaptation of Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, an illustrated novel by Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and Christopher Golden (The Borderkind).  New Regency Pictures obtained the rights to the World War I/Influenza Era vampire saga that was published in August by Bantam under its Spectra imprint.  New Regency has tapped Mignola and Golden to write the screenplay based on their book, and according to Variety, the deal, which includes rights as well as scripting fees, runs to seven figures.

The 304-page Baltimore ($25.00) is essentially a prose work enlivened throughout with striking black-and-white illustrations by Mignola and it has done very well in the bookstore market. Since it release on August 28th it managed to hang with the manga in the Top 50 on the BookScan list of graphic novels sold in bookstores thanks to a sales velocity matched by only a very few American-generated graphic novels.  Despite a relative lack of pre-publication fanfare, Baltimore has taken off apparently due in large part to Mignola's evocative cover illustration and solid word of mouth.

As in 30 Days of Night (and in contrast to the hordes of romantic, self-sacrificing, misunderstood chick lit bloodsuckers who inhabit much of today's vampire fiction) the vampires in Baltimore are nasty, brutish, foul and cunning throwbacks to the dangerous demons in Bram Stoker's original Dracula novel.  Combine the novel's Hobbesian view of vampires with a deftly drawn historical backdrop highlighting the carnage of the waning days of World War I and the result is a potent and refreshed take on the ever popular vampire genre.