Birdman star Michael Keaton is doing comic book hero movie Imagine Agents

Fox bought up the rights to the Boom! comic

Michael Keaton earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of an actor struggling to escape his comic book hero past in Birdman, but its theme obviously didn't play too much on his mind as his next role will be in a comic book adaptation called Imagine Agents.

Keaton will produce and star in the Fox film, the story of which 'tackles the idea that the imaginary friends of children are actually very real and centers on an organization titled I.M.A.G.I.N.E.,' according to The Hollywood Reporter, 'which handles things when these figments get out of control.'

The actor is thought to be playing a jaded 20-year veteran at the organisation who is training his replacement.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Keaton's director in Birdman, previously described comic book adaptations as "cultural genocide".

"I think there’s nothing wrong with being fixated on superheroes when you are 7 years old, but I think there’s a disease in not growing up," he said.

"The problem is that sometimes they purport to be profound, based on some Greek mythological kind of thing. And they are honestly very right wing.

"I always see them as killing people because they do not believe in what you believe, or they are not being who you want them to be. I hate that, and don’t respond to those characters.

"They have been poison, this cultural genocide, because the audience is so overexposed to plot and explosions and shit that doesn’t mean nothing about the experience of being human."

Keaton, who made his name as Batman, is currently filming a movie about McDonald's in which he plays co-founder Ray Kroc.

@christophhooton