Lost and Alias creator producing period robot graphic novel adaptation

Paramount Pictures, J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production shingle nabbed rights to the graphic novel Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel, a story centered on a robot set in the Victorian Age, HeatVision reports.

Boilerplate was written by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, and tells the story of the world’s first robot, who purportedly, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fought alongside Terry Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia, journeyed to the South Pole and was involved in the silent movie business before disappearing on the battlefields of World War I. The book tells Boilerplate’s story by inserting the character into pictures drawn in the style of various time periods.

According to the report, Guinan originally pitched the concept via a website 11 years ago when trying to drum up interest in a graphic novel. The site eventually took on a life of its own when people began believing the robot and its history to be true. Ultimately, the book was published last year.

Bad Robot also has in development an untitled diamond heist project based on a Joshua Davis article in Wired Magazine, as well as Mystery on Fifth Avenue, from a New York Times article about a family’s Manhattan apartment that was designed as a giant puzzle.