Before The Void, Leprechaun Returns and Psycho Goreman, director Steven Kostanski got his start with the low-budget science-fiction action film Manborg, and we've learned today that a novelization of the 2011 film is on the way!
Being released by Encyclopocalypse Publications, which was founded by Saturn and Rondo Award-winning writer/producer Mark Alan Miller (Nightbreed: The Director's Cut, BOOM! Studios’ Hellraiser comics), the Manborg novelization is penned by Bret Nelson (author of Lumber and Other Tales) from the original script by Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie (Father's Day, The Void).
"Whenever I read about the movie, Manborg, it is noted early and often that the team at Astron 6 managed to make it for $1,000 CAD. I’d rather note, early and often, that the budget limitations were overcome by the talent and tenacity of the filmmakers," Nelson says. "Yes, it has a garage-band feel and it’s rough around the edges. But look deeper. The wide shots of Meganet City feature vehicles and people in the backgrounds, you’d expect a pan across a still image. In dialogue, the usual low-budget, minutes-long two-shots are absent. Armies of Killborgs. Stop-motion beasts. Really cool villains and heroes. There’s a whole movie here, a whole world that extends beyond the edges of the frame."
Nelson continues, "My goal with the novelization was to show the wider timeline and the larger view of the world and characters. But to build those things organically from the screenplay and the film. And above all, keep it crazy and fun. That’s my hope for anyone reading it. That they have fun. I certainly did."
"I am so f&%king stoked to be releasing Manborg!" Miller says. "It’s one of my favorite movies. So much so, in fact, that I had originally planned on writing the book. But when I was unable to commit the time, I did the second-best thing and hired a better writer."
Kostanski had this to say after reading the novelization of his film, "Bret Nelson has transformed my admittedly simplistic film script into an engaging action-packed story, expanding the world and the characters in an organic way that typically doesn’t happen with novels adapted from feature films. It’s a great companion piece to the film, and I’m honored to have new life injected into the undead cyborg that is Manborg."
Manborg will be available June 10th in eBook and in paperback exclusively on Amazon. Pre-order your Kindle copy now.
In Manborg, a dead soldier is brought back to life as a cyborg to fight hordes of demonic soldiers alongside a ragtag band of adventurers in a dystopian future.
"For the type of cinephiles whose youthful Friday nights were spent camped in front of the VCR with a plain-cheese pizza and widening grins plastered across their 8-year-old faces, that sentence alone should be enough to trigger heart palpitations."
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