Paul W.S. Anderson and Jeremy Bolt have bought the rights to a new British novel that has the potential to become a franchise in both novel and film format, The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett.

The novel tells the story of a future world that is attacked nightly by demons. Humankind is at the end, fallen into a feudal state and struggling to survive when three people begin to arise who carry powers which could allow humans to fight back.

One of the three is title character of the novel, The Warded Man (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com), who has wards, also known as spells, tattooed all over his body which contain his power.

The amazing thing about this book is that the author, Peter V. Brett, wrote it on his two hour commute to work every morning on his Blackberry according to The Hollywood Reporter. See, that's what you could be doing on your commute. Me? I write Filmstalker articles every walking moment!

The book is planned to be part of a trilogy called The Demon Cycle, and the first book became a best seller in Europe and is already on its second print in Germany and third in the UK. It's not clear if Paul W.S. Anderson and Jeremy Bolt have bought the rights to the trilogy or just the novel, it suggests that it's only the first novel so far.

Also already announced is that Anderson is set to direct the film, and with the producers buying the rights themselves I can't help wondering if this is really going to get the outing it deserves.

If Anderson can deliver something akin to films like Event Horizon and Soldier rather than his recent films then I think we could see something interesting from the film, but it will also need some strong funding to go along with it.