UPDATED: The Umbrella Academy - Gerard Way's vision to be a movie?

First Showing have been talking about this - IESB talked with My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and learned that his comic, The Umbrella Academy, has been optioned by Universal and is on its way to become a feature film.

The Umbrella Academy is a six-issue comic book series written by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance and illustrated by Gabriel Bá. The first issue was published last year by Dark Horse Comics and the series eventually went on to win the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series. In the comic, the members of the Umbrella Academy, a disbanded group of superheroes, reunite after the death of their adoptive father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves. Hargreeves, an alien disguised as a famous inventor, collected the seven members of the Umbrella Academy shortly after their birth and trained them to save the world from an unspecified threat. Now they'll carry on his plan to save the world.

UPDATE: MTV have been speaking to Way about this news.

“It’s a pretty recent development,” explained Way from an interview from the floor of this year’s San Diego Comic Con. “Mike Richardson, who runs Dark Horse and owns it, just signed a three picture deal with Universal because he has a great relationship with them from ‘Hellboy,’ and the first film that he wanted to get made – that they wanted to option – was ‘Umbrella Academy.’”

Yet as excited as Way is for an “Umbrella Academy” film, the unabashed comic geek who was once an intern at DC Comics and graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts with a degree in cartooning, is quick to say that he hopes that a few more volumes of “Umbrella Academy” can hit shelves before a film hits theaters.

“You know how it goes, you wanna see it happen so you get really excited, but you gotta kinda be patient,” said Way. “By the time the film comes out, I think we’ll be on series four [of "Umbrella Academy"] which I think is important. I think if a movie came out right now, we only have one series under our belt, and it’s not enough mythology out there.”

I've read the first few issues of the first mini and think it is pretty cool. Weird concepts, cool visuals and a great story. What do you think? Will it make a good film?

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