According to The Hollywood Reporter James McAvoy, perhaps best known for his role as the faun, Mr. Tumnus in Disney's first Narnia film, will star as Wesley Gibson in the movie adaptation of the Wanted comic book series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones (published by Top Cow).  Tyro Russian helmer Timur Bekmanbetov (see 'Russian to Direct Wanted') will direct the film, which Universal hopes to put in production early in 2007.

According to The Reporter, Wanted will have a budget just south of the $100 million mark, but will make the most of modern film-making technologies (and the absence of big stars with bloated salaries) in order to produce a film that looks like it cost $200 million. 

Universal has a number of comic/graphic novel-based projects in the works including Halo (see 'Halo Helmer Named'), Hellboy 2 (see 'Universal Picks Up Hellboy2') and Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (see 'Pilgrim's Progress').