Chris Columbus will direct and produce a film featuring the Marvel Comics icon “Sub-Mariner” for Universal Pictures.

Marvel Studios chairman-CEO Avi Arad and former U production prexy-turned-producer Kevin Misher are producing the pic along with Columbus and his 1492 Prods.

David Self (“Road to Perdition”) penned the script and is exec producing the film.

“Sub-Mariner” is based on Marvel’s first superhero, Prince Namor, a half-amphibian man from the kingdom of Atlantis. A troubled rebel with a fierce temper, he has both helped the human race and fought against it when humankind polluted his underwater kingdom.

While Marvel’s Arad said Columbus was a helmer that he’d been “courting for years to become a part of the Marvel universe,” talks began to heat up substantially in July.

Film’s progress to the screen will be overseen at Universal Pictures by vice chair of worldwide production Mary Parent and VP of production Damien Saccani.

Misher Films has an overall production arrangement with U and most recently produced Nicole Kidman-Sean Penn starrer “The Interpreter.”