Actor/screenwriter Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder) and Jesse Chabot are penning an adaptation of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s graphic novel Random Acts of Violence. Baruchel has written the screenplay for Goon, a movie about a minor league hockey enforcer (not to be confused with the animated adaptation of Eric Powell’s The Goon), which just wrapped up production in Canada. Baruchel is also continuing with his acting career. He has a role in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis and will once again voice the part of Hiccup in the animated sequel to How To Train Your Dragon.

 

No word yet whether Baruchel will play one of the two key roles in Random Acts of Violence, the saga of two struggling comic book creators who finally find success with a Slasherman comic about a serial killer. But as they are touring comic shops to promote the book, a string of Slasherman-type murders follows in their wake, and it’s up to them to solve the murders or die trying.  

 

Will Baruchel do more than just write the screenplay for Random Acts of Violence? Palmiotti told MTV that he “would love to see him (Baruchel) play one of the two main characters—either the writer or the artist would be perfect.”

 

Random Acts of Violence has a leg up compared to most comic book-based projects when it comes to making it to the big screen. It is published by the heavily Hollywood-connected Kickstart (Wanted, Painkiller Jane, Preacher, The Boys) through Image Comics.