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  Variety reports today that things are looking up for Deadman. After impressing studio executives with a zombie spec script, screenwriter Gary Dauberman has been hired to develop a Deadman script with producer and director Guillermo Del Toro, who's about to blow people away this Christmas with Pan's Labyrinth.

Of course, Del Toro is still ostensibly working on Hellboy 2 and At the Mountains of Madness, so please don't get excited that we're going to see Boston Brand swing across the screen anytime soon.

Or even that it's going to be Boston Brand. Don't forget that Vertigo has relaunched a Deadman that bears slight resemblance to the classic Arnold Drake character.

Originally, circus aerialist Boston Brand found himself avenging his own murder at the behest of higher power Rama Kushna. After solving that crime with his ability to possess living people's bodies, Deadman asked for the chance to do some good to balance out all the evil that he'd seen while wandering the world.

In the Vertigo rethink, the titular character is Brandon Cayce, an airline pilot bouncing along parallel worlds and timelines trying to solve the mystery of his own death. In a recent issue, he did don the red and white costume of Boston Brand.

This is also not the first time that a Deadman project has been bandied about. Years ago, TNT had looked into developing the property for a weekly series, but that project is obviously long dead.

The character has also had animated life, most recently in the second season of Justice League Unlimited.

Don Murphy's Angry Films is backing Del Toro on this one.

Derek McCaw