EXCLUSIVE: MGM has optioned Rising Stars, the Top Cow comic series created by J. Michael Straczynski. He is set to write the script, and Alex Gartner and Richard Suckle will produce for Atlas Entertainment. Straczynski created/produced the Emmy and Hugo-winning Babylon 5 series, and he most recently wrote and exec produced with Lily and Lana Wachowski the Netflix series Sense 8, and his script credits include Changeling, Ninja Assassin, Thor, Underworld Awakening and World War Z.

Studio JMS

Aside from all this, he still finds time to create comics for Marvel DC, Top Cow and others, and his comics have sold over 11 million copies and earned him the Eisner Award and other honors. Rising Stars follows a special group of people all linked to one extraordinary event, and how they change the world we know into something we only imagined. It offers a new world of superheroes, as 113 children who were in utero when a meteor hit their Illinois hometown were left with special powers. Some of them are being murdered, and when that happens, their powers switch to the remaining “specials,” some of whom want nothing to do with this superhero business. Straczynski will also serve as a producer along with Atlas, though his Studio JMS banner. He’s repped by Paradigm and Kevin Kelly at Gender/Kelly.