Oscar-Winning Writer of 'Spotlight" Sets Next Project with Graphic Novel Adaptation, 'Pulp'

by Darian Scalamoni

    Despite co-writing and directing a Best Picture winner in Spotlight, Tom McCarthy has stayed mostly out of the news for a bit. However, Above the Line has reported an exclusive that McCarthy is working on his next project. McCarthy will co-write an adaptation of the 2020 graphic novel, Pulp alongside the comic's writer, Ed Brubaker (Westworld, Too Old to Die Young).

    The graphic novel is described as a thriller following a man named Max Winters, a writer in New York within the 1930s who finds himself caught within a story similar to those that he would write. Being known for writing tales of an outlaw within the Old West, Winters finds himself being chased by Nazis, bank robbers and adversaries from his past, so the question is, will Max have the guts to become an outlaw himself? 

    Brubaker and McCarthy have begun work on the script which they intend to shop to studios soon with Legendary having the inside track on securing the project. Brubaker has previously written for Marvel, DC and Image Comics, the latter for which was the birthplace of Pulp, however, he's also worked in television having co-written Too Old to Die Young on Amazon with Nicolas Winding Refn and written for HBO's Westworld. 

    McCarthy has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won for Best Original Screenplay alongside Josh Singer for Spotlight, which chronicled the true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered a ring of child molestation within the Catholic Archdiocese in the 2000s. That film went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. McCarthy has since followed that project with the Disney+ film, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made and the Matt Damon-starrer, Stillwater.