Jeff Lemire’s The Underwater Welder from Top Shelf/IDW just brokered a deal with Ryan Gosling, Ken Kao’s Waypoint, and Anonymous Content to bring The New York Times Bestseller to the big screen.
Gosling, Kao, and Anonymous content will produce the film. Lemire and Chris Staros, the Editor-in-Chief at Top Shelf, and Ted Adams, the CEO and Publisher for IDW Publishing, will executive produce the film.
The Underwater Welder is a graphic novel originally published by Top Shelf Productions that was both written and drawn by Jeff Lemire. Lemire tells the story of Jack Joseph, an offshore oil rig worker who is responsible for repairing the rig. The catch is he repairs the rig underwater. And on one dive, Jack has a supernatural encounter that puts him in contact with the ghost of his own father. While Jack encounters the ghost of his own father, his wife is expecting their first child on shore.
The graphic novel explores a number of themes about fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and reality, and the treasures we all bury deep below the surface.
No director is currently attached to the project, but with a big name actor like Gosling already attached the movie is definitely on the right track.