{"id":1646,"date":"2009-03-02T15:48:31","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T22:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2009-03-02T15:48:31","modified_gmt":"2009-03-02T22:48:31","slug":"graphic-novels-to-the-big-screen-what-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1646","title":{"rendered":"Graphic Novels to the Big Screen: What Next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Onion’s AV Club has posted an article today<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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;<\/p>\n

Written and drawn by Katsushiro Otomo two years before Akira, Domu: A Child’s Dream<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

OK, your turn – what’s right and what’s wrong with their list?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}