Vertigo is not known for its film and television adaptations generally(with a few big exceptions), even though much of its library seems perfectly fit to a filmic structure.  This has become even more true as recent years has seen a number of genre-oriented miniseries that are fit well to direct film adaptations.

That is exactly what New Line Cinema was thinking as well when they decided to option The Kitchen, a six-issue mafioso-style crime comic from 2015.  Sam Brown and Michael Disco, who worked on this summer’s big film from New Line called Central Intelligence, will act as Executive Producers on the project for the company, likely just fielding it to the primary creative production people.

The miniseries became a sleeper hit as it inhabits the role of urban crime with a nice twist and a retro 1970s setting.  As Den of Geeks outlines, the film, like the comic, is one where the women take over.  Andrea Berloff will be taking on the screenwriting duties, which is impressive since she recently struck gold with her work on Straight Outta Compton.

The Kitchen is gritty portrayal of New York City in the late ’70s, a city on the razor’s edge of bankruptcy that seethes with sex, drugs and gang violence. The Hell’s Kitchen district is terrorized by Irish mobsters carrying out hits for the Mafia. When kingpin Jimmy Brennan and his henchmen are arrested and locked away in prison, their wives step up to run their rackets. Kath, Raven and Angie become hooked on the fast life and fast cash—and nothing, not even their husbands eventually being released from behind bars, is going to get in the way of them having what they want.

Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle, who did the comic, will likely have some creative control over the project, but that information has yet to be announced.

It is no surprise that the project came over to New Line as Warner Brothers announced that the Vertigo titles would head over to New Line while the DC superhero adaptations would stay with the parent company.  This was made clear when Sandman was moved over to New Line and Vertigo was now set in their wheelhouse.

While The Kitchen was a solid storyline, it is not the most flashy or the highest selling Vertigo property, so it is an interesting choice.  This is hopefully signaling that New Line is going to begin mining a lot of the genre properties in the recent Vertigo library as options for doing general genre work.  This would make things like Wolf Moon and The Wake possible options on our horizon.