Graphic Novels to the Big Screen: What Next?
Graphic Novels to the Big Screen: What Next?
Mar 02The Onion’s AV Club has posted an article today suggesting 24 graphic novels that, hot on the heels of the super-hot Watchmen, should be turned into movies. And it’s an interesting list, with some good choices, some bad choices, and a missed opportunity.
I’ll start with the bad choice – I don’t think Ronin would make a good movie. I realize Frank Miller is a big thing in H’wood these days (slightly less big, after The Spirit, but a Sin City sequel supposedly in the works could offset the damage), but Ronin is one massive mind firetruck. 3/4 of it is begging to be made into a film, and the final chapter is enough to make any screenwriter toss an award statue through the giant picture window of his home on the Hollywood hills, and jump out after it. But hey – Lord of the Rings and Watchmen weren’t supposed to be filmable either.
The rest are up for debate – which do you like? (I think Concrete would be a great, if hard to pitch, film.) Which do you not agree with? Which do you think are missing?
Manga is conspicuously missing from the list, and that’s a shame – while it’s often assumed that manga can only become anime, I don’t know that this list discounts that possibility, but there is a strong suggestion that this is a Hollywood list – Japan isn’t invited. But the list also doesn’t discount the possibility of manga to live-action. And I’ve got a good possibility;
Written and drawn by Katsushiro Otomo two years before Akira, Domu: A Child’s Dream is a beautifully story self-contained in a Japanese apartment complex. A new child has moved into the the apartment with her family, only to find that strange things are happening. The strange things are being caused by a psychically powerful, and terribly senile old man, who is driving those with weaker minds to do terrible things. And then the little girl stands up to him, as she’s as powerful as he is. And all hell breaks loose on a level that puts The Matrix to shame.
I think a straight adaptation is long overdue, but I also think that a live-action version would do well. Even if the money-men can’t wrap their heads around a movie set in a Japanese apartment complex, there are American parallels to be found in the various apartment projects and inner-city projects. This story would work just as well there, maybe even better.
OK, your turn – what’s right and what’s wrong with their list?
Just finished Domu last week and I agree. It would make a good movie. I’d rather have that than trying to do an Akira adaptation right now.
hmm…that’s a weird list. for me, honestly, most of them fall into the Watchmen “shouldn’t even be a movie really” list…and yet, here comes Watchmen, and it looks pretty good, so who knows.
Of their list, Runaways and Criminal were the two that instantly jumped out at me as, “Ooh, that’d be cool.”
i’m bad at thinking of stuff for things like this, so the only thing that comes to mind is Box Office Poison, which I’d pitch as Friends starring Harvey Pekar. I could see that being a really good indie flick. A couple juicy parts in there for “name” actors slumming a little…
I forgot to write the missed opportunity – they wasted slot #24 to shit on (rightly) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a movie, but wasted the opportunity to point out that the second book – the League versus War of the World Martians – that says Must-Make-Movie to me.
I do think Domu would make an excellent movie. Back in the late 90’s, when they were imploding a bunch of the old projects in Chicago, I kept thinking to myself that this was a perfect opportunity for a filmmaker to step in and use one of those as a set.
I think the new Blue Beetle would be a good candidate for adaptation.
Jason: Yep, a Blue Beetle movie could be very cool. Written right, pitched right…awesome.
Chris: YES. Along those lines, I bet the Scarlet Traces series has some huge potential.