XIII: The Conspiracy

While looking up some other comic book movie connections in A History of Violence, I stumbled across the fact that a XIII mini-series is in the works. If you're not familiar with it, that's the Belgian comic that the Ubisoft game is based on. Don't know why this is so under the radar (unless it's because it's not a done deal - though that never seems to stop anyone), but after a little hunting, and translating of French web pages, I finally came across some information.

The series is called XIII: The Conspiracy (even if you Google that, there are only 20 hits: second-hand news sources, foreign-language web pages, and the text of a book with a 13th chapter that starts out "The conspiracy..."). The mini is slated to be in production right now, starring Stephen Dorff (as XIII) and Val Kilmer (as Mongoose). The best information came from the British production company Power, which seems to be one of the companies involved in making the XIII mini-series. Here's their October 2007 story. Unfortunately, Google must not crawl their sites - I had to translate a French blog to find this (my French isn't that good - I had to use the Google translator).

The series starts out like the game (and I'm assuming the comic). XIII washes up on the beach with amnesia, only to find out he's being hunted for the assassination of the president. Judging from the cult following, it makes for a great comic book; from personal experience, it makes for an amazing game. If you don't know the story, here's a more complete synopsis of the adaptation from Power's page:

XIII: The Conspiracy opens with the assassination of the first female US President Sally Sheridan who is shot dead by a sniper during her Independence Day speech. Her assassin narrowly escapes the scene with his life, national security hot on his heels – or so it seems.

Three months later, an elderly couple discover the body of a wounded man washed up on a beach. The young man (Stephen Dorff) cannot remember the slightest thing about his own identity. The only clue is a tattoo on his neck, “XIII.” Meanwhile, in the Whitehouse, government intelligence is still conducting the search for the President’s killer. With the elections just weeks away, a confirmed suspect could swing the vote for the administration. Hours after XIII’s location is picked up by covert intelligence, elite special ops forces are swarming the couple’s house in Cape Fear. Running on adrenaline and instinct, XIII tactically takes out the soldiers one by one. Is this who he is – a killer?

On the run, clinging to one desperate clue after another, XIII begins to piece back his life, fragments of his memory returning. Finally captured, he learns that he has been given a stolen identity and placed undercover to flush out a group of conspirators threatening to overthrow the government. Ensconced within the highest echelons of power the conspirators run their own security agency alongside the Government’s. Both are out to find him.

The only way for XIII to get his own life back is to play bait. A dangerous game, especially when you don’t know who you really are.

The official IMDB page lists a number of actors attached to the series (including Greg Bryk from History of Violence), but doesn't include Dorff and Kilmer.

If anyone has any more current info, I'd love to hear about it.