Veteran Hollywood Producer Brian Witten to Head Heavy Metal
Veteran Hollywood producer and exec Brian Witten has been named president of Heavy Metal. He will oversee the magazine-turned-media company’s film and TV business.
Witten will attend Comic-Con, where Heavy Metal’s panel is set to disclose its future plans.
Witten’s producer and executive producer credits include an upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s “Cell,” with Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack; “Mother’s Day”; “Chernobyl Diaries”; and 2009’s “Friday the 13th.” Witten was president of Fangoria Film after working as a production exec at Paramount, where he oversaw “Vanilla Sky” and “Mission Impossible 3,” and at New Line, where he presided over “The Wedding Singer,” “Spawn,” “Dark City” and “Final Destination.”
Witten broke into the business in the early 1990s when he partnered with Image Comics co-founder Rob Liefeld on film and TV projects.
Heavy Metal magazine, which began publishing in 1977 in the U.S., specializes in dark fantasy/science-fiction and erotica. It inspired a 1981 animated feature and a 2000 sequel.
Robert Rodriguez announced at Comic-Con in 2011 that he had acquired the feature rights to the title “Heavy Metal” to develop a large-scale media project and a new animated film.
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