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Will Smith Turning Harlem Hellfighters into Movie

Max Brooks Zombie Novel Harlem Hellfighters is getting turned into a movie after he recieved a call from Will Smith.

CelebNMusic247.com has learned that Will Smith has reportedly signed on to produce a film adaptation of the graphic novel “Harlem Hellfighters”.

The 45-year-old actor will team up with Sony Pictures to bring Max Brooks’ upcoming novel, which is inspired by the true story of the all African-American 369th Infantry Regiment which fought in the US Army During World War I and II.

“Harlem Hellfighters” writer Max is best known for writing the book “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War”, which was later adapted into successful zombie horror “World War Z”, which starred Brad Pitt.

The Overbrook head honcho loved the novel and wants to make this his next big blockbuster. Hollywood Icons, Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft son, Max Brooks is said to pen a first draft for a script. Brooks spoke on the novel being turned into a movie.

Brooks says:

“15 years ago I shopped this around as a script and nobody in Hollywood wanted it, so I wrote it a illustrated graphic novel.”

“Two weeks before the book came out Will Smith called me to pen the first draft.”

Max has had a passion to have this film made for over a decade and now that he has released a graphic novel it has opened a door into the film world.

Here is a taste of what Harlem Hellfighters has to offer graphic novelist fans as well as future movie goers.

Brooks’ new graphic novel, The Harlem Hellfighters, shines a literary klieg light on a woefully overlooked chapter of World War I. Here is what Newsday has to say about the novel.

The 369th Infantry Regiment was an all-minority (African-American and African-Puerto Rican) unit that proved crucial in the trench warfare of 1918. The 369th — dubbed the Harlem Hellfighters by its foes — was in combat longer than any other U.S. unit. Yet, while backing President Woodrow Wilson‘s battle cry of making the world “safe for democracy,” the 369th fought racism every step of the way — not only in the European theater, but also while training in the American South.

Brooks tells their riveting tale by creating some fictional members of the unit and depicting actual heroes, including Lt. James Reese Europe, the bandleader who helped introduce Europe to jazz. The winning effect is that no matter how far specific characters venture into narrative invention, the novel marches in time with the history books.

What gives “Hellfighters” its most poignant traction is not how foreign mortar fire wounds the flesh, but rather how the homefront racism does. Soldiers are beaten by countrymen in South Carolina, against the larger backdrop of lynchings. And once overseas, the 369th is restricted from fighting alongside white American soldiers. The great irony is that while Gen. John J. Pershing seeks to deny the 369th any battlefield glory, a Hellfighter becomes the first American awarded France’s Croix de Guerre.