When a good writer decides to step up to the director’s chair, I almost always get both nervous and excited. We usually know that they can meticulously craft a story on paper, but do they have the keen visual eye and management skills to bring together hundreds of people and bring those pages to life? Hellboy screenwriter Peter Briggs will take on this task as Variety reports he will be directing Mortis Rex, a story set in 122 AD that “centers on a disgraced Roman war hero who is given a last opportunity to redeem his reputation when sent to a Roman garrison beset by a spate of brutal and unexplained killings.”