Before 20th
Century Fox's movie "Jumper" opens Thursday, Feb. 14, there's a bit of a backstory
to be told.
The film,
an adaptation of Steven Gould's novel of the same name, explores a world where
"Jumpers" — individuals who can teleport
through space and time — are hunted by Paladins.
"Jumper:
Jumpscars" from Oni Press is a 96-page original graphic novel set prior to
the film's story. The graphic novel explores the history of the Paladin Mary
Rice, played in the film by Diane Lane.
Putting the "Jumpscars" story to paper is the writing team of Christina Weir
and Nunzio DeFilippis and artist Brian Hurtt.
"It's a
full universe, with a lot of aspects that have great potential that there just
wasn't room for in the film," DeFilippis told Newsarama [Full Interview].
"Some of the mythology surrounding the Paladins is in the film, but a lot of it
goes unspoken. We had a chance, by having access to the film's producers, the
studio, and through them the writers and director, to tap into the unused
portion of their plans. And even better, to put our own spin on it - bring our
own take to the Paladins. Plus, there was a character whose backstory just
begged to be told, and we got to do it."
Given the
relative production schedules of the movie and graphic novel, both were being worked
on at the same time, something Weir said created unique challenges.
"While the
story we're telling takes place a good twenty years before the movie, we still
wanted to make sure that we didn't write anything that would conflict with what
they were doing," Weir said. "We read a draft of the script early on. But that
wasn't even close to the final draft or what they actually shot. On top of
that, our artist Brian Hurtt had his own set of challenges trying to keep the
look of the book consistent with the look of the movie. They played around with
the jump effect for a long time before they settled on the final project. And
there we were asking Brian to draw these scenes with a character
jumping and he didn't know what the actual special effect was supposed to
look like."
While
nothing of "Jumpscars" length is scheduled, the two are keeping the door open
for future work in the world of "Jumper" and have written a short story that
will be included as a comic in the eventual DVD release.
"Jumper: Jumpscars"
is available Wednesday, Feb. 13 at comic book shops nationwide.
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