The French comics Website Le Graphivore is reporting that director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita) has acquired the movie rights to Jacque Tardi's nine-volume series of graphic novels, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec.  The accord between Tardi's publisher Casterman and Besson's EuropaCorp paves the way for a trio of films based on the Adele Blanc-Sec graphic novels, which have sold over two million copies in Europe.  The first film in the series is due in theaters in 2009.

Set in Paris during the decade dominated by the First World War, the Adele Blanc-Sec series is notable, not just for Tardi's style and storytelling skill, but also for the character of the heroine of the series.  She is considered one of the first truly modern female characters in the world of Franco-Belgian comics thanks to her sharp intelligence and redoubtable independence.

Tardi, who both wrote and illustrated the Adele Blanc-Sec series, is an expert on the World War I period.  In 2006 the Dutch visual arts magazine ZozoLala named Tardi's C'Etait La Guerre de Tranchees the 'Best Graphic Novel of All Time' (see 'Tardi's 'Trench War' Named Best Graphic Novel').

NBM released a number of volumes from the Adele Blanc-Sec series during the 1990s, though they all appear to be out of print at this time.