So who’s going to win the big summer comic book movie sweepstakes? Will it be Marvel’s Thor? DC’s Green Lantern? Cowboys & Aliens?

You might not know it, but there’s another comic book based movie coming out and it’s opening this Friday, April 29th.

Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night.

It’s based on an Italian comic book series created by writer Tiziano Sclavi back in 1986. The series claims nearly 60 million readers worldwide, though almost none of them are in the U.S. The series was reprinted by Dark Horse in 7 volumes between 1999-2002.

The movie is set in New Orleans where Dylan is an investigator of the undead. Brandon Routh from Superman Returns plays Dylan, and the supporting cast includes Taye Diggs and Peter Stormare (so great in Fargo).

The screenplay is by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, who also wrote the new Conan movie and the upcoming Dr. Strange movie, so consider this a preview of coming attractions. The director is Kevin Munroe who did the 2007 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night is co-produced by Platinum Studios (with Hyde Park Films and Long Distance Films), the same folks who are also co-producing Cowboys & Aliens (with Dreamworks Pictures and Imagine Entertainment) later this year.

In conjunction with the US release of the movie, Daily Blam is holding a contest.

Disclosure: Though I’m hardly a journalist, I should point out that at one point in my life Platinum CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and I used to work for the same company, Malibu Comics, and at another point in my life, I worked on the script for Kevin Munroe’s Christmas special, Donner.

[Artwork: Dylan Dog]