Last month, a Redditor posed the technical writer and two-time Jeopardy! champ from Des Moines, Iowa, replied to the question with a short story. The story became a series (Rome, Sweet Rome) which spawned its own subreddit complete with fan art (example to the right) and fan made trailers.
Soon thereafter Adam Kolbrenner of Madhouse Entertainment contacted Erwin about developing the story into a screenplay, and then he brought the pitch to Chris Gary of Warner Brothers. Gary instructed Warner to “move aggressively” if they wanted to acquire the rights. With studios buying the film rights to Rubik’s Cubes and board games and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, buying a Reddit comment is still the sanest thing they’ve done lately.
Variety offers a synopsis of the screenplay adaptation:
[The movie] will follow the Marines as they’re flung into the past where they encounter one of the world’s most legendary villains and disrupt history. To return home, they have to set history back on the track they altered.
Ah yes, they awake to find themselves trapped in the past, facing a culture that is not their own, driven by circumstance to change history for the better, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that their next leap, will be the leap home.
[Sources: Reddit, Variety, BoingBoing, Screenrant, Blwrtheblob, Hustlersquad]