Although excerpts from the film version of Greg Rucka’s Whiteout graphic novel (published by Oni Press) were first shown at Comic-Con in 2007, the firm release date for the film, which stars Kate Beckinsdale as U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, who has to solve a string of murders at an isolated base in the Antarctica before winter closes in, was not announced until recently.  Previously the film had been tentatively scheduled to debut this fall in either September or October, but Warner Bros. Pictures has now made it official—Whiteout will be released on April 24th, 2009.

Because of the writer’s strike competition should be a little slimmer in 2009 than it will be this fall, though perhaps Warners should have thought about opening the film a week or two earlier in April.  Whiteout debuts just before the start of the “summer” movie season, which will begin a week later on May 1st with the release of Fox’s X-Men: Wolverine (the only big superhero film of the summer) and Disney’s Hannah Montana: The Movie.  Although X-Men: Wolverine will undoubtedly put a crimp in Whiteout’s second weekend in theaters, its debut should be fairly unobstructed--the only other film currently slated for release on April 24th is Vanilla Gorilla, the tale of an albino gorilla who communicates with a young girl via sign language.

Whiteout, which also stars Gabriel Macht (The Spirit), is the sort of film that has the potential to sell a lot of graphic novels even if it doesn't become a huge box office hit, but it will probably be largely up to retailers to inform the public, which usually doesn't associate thriller/murder mysteries with the comic book/graphic novel medium, that this film is based on a graphic novel, and that there is more material where that came from (see “New Whiteout Comic Series”).