Pan's Labyrinth/Hellboy helmer, Dr. Who/Sherlock's Thompson to co-write pilot

The entertainment news website Deadline reported on Wednesday that acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro ( Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim ) is developing Naoki Urasawa's suspense manga Monster into a possible television series for HBO. Del Toro and Steven Thompson ( Dr. Who, Sherlock ) will write the pilot that del Toro will direct. Deadline describes the story:

The thriller is about the worldwide search by a young doctor for the most evil sociopath that has ever lived. He is a 12-year old boy, and the doctor's decision to save his life has unwittingly unleashed a Pandora's Box that leaves the doc battling to stop a plot of mass genocide.

Angry Films' Don Murphy (live-action Transformers) and Susan Montford are executive producers along with del Toro. Thompson will serve as a co-executive producer, and Shogakukan — the publisher of the original manga — will be a consulting producer.

New Line Cinema acquired the feature film rights to the manga in 2005, and even assigned a writer, Josh Olson (Batman: Gotham Knight), to pen two possible films. However, Deadline reported that the project grew too big for a feature or two. Del Toro then convinced Urasawa to allow him to tackle the project. Del Toro, Murphy, and Montford previously attempted to turn the H.P. Lovecraft novella At The Mountains Of Madness into a feature film with Tom Cruise, but the project stalled over whether it will have an R rating.

Viz published the Monster manga, as well several other titles by Urasawa, in North America. Viz also released the Monster television anime series, and the anime ran on the television channel Syfy in the United States from 2009 to 2010.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.