Major Igor Grom, a tough as nails police detective with the Saint Petersburg Crime Unit who must deal with The Plague Doctor, a mysterious vigilante targeting the rich and streaming their murders on the internet.

The whole of Saint-Petersburg knows police major Igor Grom for his gutsy nature and uncompromising stance towards criminals of all stripes. Incredible strengths, analytical mind and integrity – all this makes Grom the perfect policeman. But everything changes when a man in a Plague Doctor’s mask appears. He proclaims the city to be ill with “plague of injustice” and starts “healing” the society by killing every man who once escaped the law through their money and status. People are shaken up. Police are helpless. For the first time in his life, Igor is faced with a complicated case that can decide the fate of the whole city…

Coming to theaters in Russia in Spring of this year, comes an adaptation featuring one of Russia’s popular comic book characters, Major Igor Grom, a tough as nails police detective with the Saint Petersburg Crime Unit who must deal with The Plague Doctor, a mysterious vigilante targeting the rich and streaming their murders on the internet. The story is based on the first Major Grom story arc from Bubble Comics, the largest comic book publisher in Russia. English translations of the series is available on Comixology. The film is produced by Bubble Studios, and the studio hopes to produce more film adaptations featuring their characters.

A short film was produced in 2016 as a test project before filming began on the full length feature, and was shown in the States at the San Diego Comic Con in 2017. The storyline dealt with Grom having to save hostages from a trio of bank robbers. The soundtrack to the short film was composed by Roman Seliverstov, who, along with director Vladimir Besedin locked themselves in a studio in Saint Petersburg for two months, composing the music used. The soundtrack was recorded at Abbey Road Studio One, featuring musicians who also worked on the soundtrack for the movies Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, among other genre films. Also impressive was the fight sequence in the short film, featuring a new technique with the fight choreography filmed in 360 degree shots. Seliverstov is also composing the music for the full length film, so we can only assume that more aspects of the short film are also featured.

There are some differences, however. A different director, Oleg Trofim, and Igor Grom is played by Tikhon Zhiznevskiy in The Plague Doctor, instead of the actor from the short film, Aleksander Gorbatov. The film will also feature other characters from the Major Grom comic book. Rookie Dima Dubin (played by Aleksandr Seteykin), who does everything by the book and is not very comfortable with Grom’s methods, and reporter Julia Pchelkina (played by Lyubov Aksyonova), Grom’s love interest, are two of the characters from the comic book series that are in the film. Reportedly, the film’s budget is approx. $5 million USD. The producers are also hoping to attract a Western audience with the film. If the short film and the trailer are any indication of the finished film, we’re interested.

The film will be released in Russia sometime in the Spring, with hopes of worldwide distribution to follow shortly afterwards (at least, we’re hoping it’ll be released shortly afterwards). If we can get anymore information regarding the film, as well as upcoming projects featuring more characters from Bubble Comics, we’ll bring that info to you.

If you would like to read the Major Grom comics, it’s spin-off, “Igor Grom”, and other comics from Bubble Comics, they are all available on Comixology here.

Herea are a couple of added bonuses – the soundtrack to the original short film is in our music library, so you can expect to hear the music, including the songs It Might Be Better and Move Like The Devil on your favorite Sci Fi For Your WiFi radio station. We’d also like to present the original short film, however, due to YouTube’s Community Guidelines, the film is an age restricted video, so we can’t share the video here – however, you can click the poster, and it’ll take you to film’s YouTube page in a new window, and you can watch the film, please be sure to turn on closed captioning for the translations. You won’t be disappointed.

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