A new cinematic universe is in the works, based on the little-known horror works by Marvel’s Stan Lee. Timur Bekmambetov (Abram Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Wanted) will helm the overall project and produce with his company, alongside ZQ Entertainment.

“Some fans may not know this, but Stan Lee wrote several horror comic book series in the 1940s and 1950s before superhero comics became big in the 1960s,” explained Gill Champion, POW! Entertainment’s president – a company co-founded with Lee himself, which will executive produce the project. “Stan relished revisiting the genre a few years ago when he wrote these stories, and we are excited to bring them to life with a director as visionary as Timur Bekmambetov. We think fans will be surprised to experience a darker side of Stan Lee that they’ve never witnessed before!”

The first two films announced in this deal are Carnival of Killers, with a script by Starry Eyes and Pet Sematary filmmakers Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, and Sawbones, to be written by Matt Greenberg (co-writer on Pet Sematary as well as Reign of Fire and 1408).

Carnival of Killers is set amid the Dust Bowl storms that ravaged the American Great Plains in the 1930s. The horror movie centres around a young girl with psychic abilities who senses that the traveling carnival she and her mother sought refuge in is ground zero for a looming alien invasion. Aliens and creepy clowns? Sign us up.

Meanwhile, Sawbones follows a frail 12-year old named Alex Covin, who reads a mysterious comic book and is suddenly transported into its terrifying world: a haunted Juvenile Detention Centre overrun by demonic forces led by Sawbones, a homicidal entity who preys upon the troubled inmates. Has Alex gone insane? Or is this nightmarish world his new reality? If he is to escape, Alex must find a way to defeat Sawbones – but he quickly comes to realize that the entity is the keeper of his darkness, and the personification of all his fears.

These can’t come soon enough! Further details as we get them.