EuropaCorp TV Studios has acquired the rights to Howard Chaykin’s classic comic book series American Flagg! for development as a television series.

American Flagg! is a satirical look at a high-tech consumerist future in which the U.S. government has relocated to Mars and left the nation’s Earth-bound populace to be governed by the all-encompassing corporation, “The Plex.” The saga’s hero, Reuben Flagg, is a former TV star with a naive understanding of the American dream who is drafted into law enforcement in an utterly corrupt, shopping mall-like Chicago. EuropaCorp is out to writers and directors and plans to begin shopping the project this year.

Originally published in 1983, American Flagg! has stood as a foundational element upon which the genre-subverting, adult-appeal, American indie comics “boom” of the 1980s was built. In the years since its initial release, Flagg! has been recognized for its prescient depictions of a future America colored by corporate-controlled government, the dominance of reality TV, militarized police, ubiquitous surveillance, tribalism in politics, media consolidation, and the resurgence of neo-Nazi fascism.

Matthew Bankston, EuropaCorp’s Vice President of Development, U.S. Television, landed the project for the studio and is supervising its development for television. Chaykin will serve as an Executive Producer on the series with Mark Wheeler and Rick Alexander, alongside Luc Besson of EuropaCorp.

Chaykin is repped by attorney Harris Miller. Wheeler and Alexander are both repped in the deal by Tom Collier of Sloane Offer.