Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:53AM3 comments ›
Fri Apr 25, 2008 — by Van Jensen
Frank Miller: Comics 'Strip-Mined' by Movies
22 comics optioned in six weeks
The Los Angeles Times just had a story about the boom in comics-to-film. In a recent six-week stretch, some 22 comics properties were optioned, the paper reported.
That includes Locke & Key, the supernatural thriller by Joe Hill for IDW (cover at right). While this is great news for many and illustrates the growing popularity of comics, not everyone is looking at the boom with rose-colored glasses.
"It's accelerating because right now it's fashion," says Frank Miller, who created the graphic novels behind "Sin City" and "300," and whose early-'80s series "Ronin," about a reincarnated samurai battling evil in a futuristic New York, is being adapted by Joby Harold ("Awake") for Warner Bros. "I think we can expect it to calm down. Comic books have always been this vast mountain range that gets strip-mined and left behind."
The main point of the story, though, is that one reason so many comics are adapted is that comics and graphic novels are substantially easier to read than screenplays. Miller calls screenplays the "single [worst] story form" and "unreadable."
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Comments (3)
mike weber (11:52 AM on Fri Apr 25, 2008)
So, let me get this straight - Frank Miller, whose "Spirit" film is looking more and more like a wrongheaded disaster-in-the-making (I hope i'm wrong about that, BTW) is complaining about other people doing Bad Things to comics in the movies?
That's like Start Towne, whose screenplay for "The Last Detail" completely changed the story and its resolution by simply omitting the final third of the book (the part that gives it a point), having a snit because Polanski changed the ending of his screenplay for "Chinatown" (as was reported at the time).
I've noticed that one of the things often lacking in Miller's work is irony.
Russ Rogers (12:26 PM on Fri Apr 25, 2008)
I don't think Miller is complaining, just commenting. He sees Hollywood's currently making more movies out of graphic novels as a fad, not a trend. I'm going to reserve judgment on "The Spirit" until it comes out. Maybe until it comes out on video. I'm reserving a seat for "Watchmen." Now THAT looks cool!
Vinnie Bartilucci (1:15 PM on Fri Apr 25, 2008)
It is easier to adapt something extant than to create something new. A comic will have a pre-sold market of some size, and a good story idea they can adapt (read: ruin) and improve (read: ruin) with impunity. Much like the mistake they made with Godzilla too many in Hollywood see comics properties as names people remember, but do not know or recall any of the details of such, so they can be altered with no worries.
I recall when Rocketeer came out, they went out of the their way NOT to mention it was based on a comic. This was still too soon after the nightmare that was Howard The Duck, and "Comic Book" were back to being naughty words. Now they're hot again, and anything and everything is getting optioned. It'll ebb and flow again , as it always does. All it'll take is one colossal disaster and they'll drop off the production calendars like those ticks from the Cloverfield Monster.