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Underground > Comic Books >

What Comic Film Do You Want To See?

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10:33 / 15.11.05

Why don't DC make more movies? A JLA film would make millions, Green Lantern would make an ace adaptation, my friend Elemental would kill to see a good Plastic Man film.

What comic would you make into a (good) film? Preferably suggestions that never will be made, like Shadowhawk- the spinebreaker strikes back! rather than the Invisibles.

I'll start with Y- the last man which would make a fucking excellent film if well cast and shot, but in my heart of hearts I want to see a Groo adaptation, oh yes, mulch and fraying huzzah!

What comic would you make into a film?

10:50 / 15.11.05

The JLA tele-movie was awful, mainly because it was made for next to nothing and made long after the event (ie when the buzz for the JLI/E etc series' was at its peak) - but I think a decent film would be great, with Batman, Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel, Mr Miricle, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Black Canary etc - however I think an animated film is the closest that you'd get to a decent JLA movie (not a bad thing though, the Justic League cartoon has had some fantastic moments).

I think 100 Bullets would make a good tv show, HBO style, of course. And the Losers in a 24 kind of way would be fun. Also Sandman Mystery Theatre could be good.

I liked the Shadow though, so what do I know.

10:56 / 15.11.05

quite looking forward to 300 when it comes out next year - it's the kind of story that just damn works and should be rather exciting. interesting to see how they handle the modern parallels too. let's hope frank the tank miller isn't too closely involved because...

the worst film to adapt to a comic is sin city. there is proof, go find it if you dare.

sandman obviously - not too keen on the mainstreamism of comics these days truth be told and favour a return to the bad old days - this could be the picture that makes the real world wake up to what a bunch of priceless wankers the comics gang really are.

and seriously? most of the comics-movies i thought i wanted to see have been done, and quite badly in the main. i suppose once the trasformers film's come out people will be casting around for similar ideas, and we might get a cheapo ABC warriors movie - that'd be nice.

11:24 / 15.11.05

It'd be nice if they did a proper Judge Dread movie. Or Strontium Dog, that'd be good. Most of the 2000ad stories could translate well, as long as the money and egos stay away.

11:47 / 15.11.05

being sequential, ongoing narratives though, you're never going to get a good monthly (or weekly or whatever)style comic character to translate. dredd or the stronts would work great as TV shows, but in a film you could never get in the uglies, the fatties, skysurfing, the smokatorium, dino-hunting cursed earth holidays and resyk and just all the stuff that a film would need to get the dredd feel right. post-lost and all that big-budgie fant'sy rubbish we might get more high-concept TV shows that could plunder the 2000ad vaults for inspiration. i'd be cheered by that, and maybe someone could do from hell as a proper grown-up bbc2 drama. (if you'd told me ten years ago that there'd be a rubbishy hellblazer movie, i'd have told that traveller-from-the-future to fuck off. if he'd have gone 'there's a proper constantine tv show, it's like eastenders with pentagrams' though, i'd have been right chuffed.)

lonely as a cloud...

11:55 / 15.11.05

Eastenders with pentagrams! That'd be cool!
I'd really like to see a good JLA movie. Preferably Morrison-era JLA, 'cos the stories are decent and I prefer the beardy Aquaman look. I'd love an animated version of We3. And maybe a b-movie style version of Swamp Thing, if that hasn't already been done?

12:02 / 15.11.05

only worth it if they retain the classic theme song:

(tune = wild thing by the troggs)

swamp thing!
you are amaze-ing!

12:03 / 15.11.05

2 b movie Swamp Thing's exist. One was serious old 80's horror in the creep show vein, one was a little bit more played for laughs - neither was great.

12:14 / 15.11.05

I'd love an animated version of We3

Ooh, good one- that would be great. I like Gumbitch's idea, gritty Hellblazer soap opera, Britain's answer to Buffy.

Behold the Wes Craven 1982 Swamp Thing B-movie and quail in terror! Marvel in disgust at Return of Swamp Thing! in 1989!

12:24 / 15.11.05

I’m convinced that Alex Cox could yet make the ideal 2000AD film. Could easily manage a pitch-perfect Strontium Dog or Nemesis the Warlock, just as long as he sets it in post-apocalyptic Liverpool and it stars Christopher Eccleston and the cast of Brookside. Or maybe he could do Finn, or just something Pat Millsy and lefty. Or else a Future Shock! movie with about 4 or 5 interlinked short stories, like those old Amicus ‘portmanteau’ horror films. And introduced by Cox painted green and dressed as Tharg.

But, yeah. Alex Cox, man. He’ll do a film that looks more like Kevin O’Neill or Mike McMahon than Brian Bolland or Dave Gibbons, but that’s fine. I’d watch that.

12:27 / 15.11.05

We3 animated movie? Only if Mamoru Oshii directs.

12:27 / 15.11.05

First arc of Promethea would be nice, provided it was made by this guy:

lonely as a cloud...

12:33 / 15.11.05

Some Future Shocks could be excellent, actually - if they were picked up by some indie film-maker. A lot of them really wouldn't need a huge budget, and could be really great. As far as I remember...

12:47 / 15.11.05

Global Frequency would have made a good three-story film. I've got visions of a live-action version of "Run" being played out over the rooftops of London. Perhaps along with "Big Wheel" (for the big action vibe), and either "Superviolence" or "Cathedral Lung" for shits and giggles.

13:21 / 15.11.05

Mister X... I don't known why but I always thought it would be great.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:45 / 15.11.05

Some Future Shocks could be excellent, actually - if they were picked up by some indie film-maker.

A film called Hardware was made based on the Future Shock "Shokk!" in about 91 - it was OK.

I think possibly the animated cartoon series is the best medium for traditionally episodic, continuity-heavy comics - hence the artistic success of the JLA cartoon or Batman: TAS against the horror of the JLA movie or some of the Batman films - IMO, the best of the Batman films is really a Tim Burton movie that happens to involve Batman. X-Men is a tougher sell - I suspect that the various cartoon and film versions will have their defenders.

The again, the Swamp Thing cartoon is pretty much the high watermark on this one. As above:

Swamp Thing!
You are amazing!
You fight everything... evil!
Swamp Thing!

14:04 / 15.11.05

I would have to vote for none. The last five or six years have really been eye opening in how the serial nature of comics is handled on the big screen. I admit to a certain curiosity and fanboy glee at seeing comics in celluloid, but all this has done in the end is convince me that these stories are better suited for panel pages.

That said, I think there have been some good comic adaptations, The Mask (first one), Men in Black (first one), and Blade (first one). All are from lesser known properties, and don't come with the weight and baggage of fifty years or so. However, Batman Begins was amazing, and I think both X-Men films (particularly X2) are comic films done right. Spider-Man movies, while having many things that were great, were filled with so much dead weight and ridiculous bullshit (the Jesus on the subway scene or Peter's talk with dead Uncle Ben come to mind) that they don't have as much replay value as X2 does. Maybe it is just that X-Men's themes of persecution are easier to write in giant letters of fire than the puberty/nerd tones of the Spider-Man story.

14:14 / 15.11.05

A film called Hardware was made based on the Future Shock "Shokk!" in about 91 - it was OK.

Yeah, but Hardware was nicked, wasn’t it? iirc, they didn’t actually buy the rights in advance or ask for permission or anything, and it was only when Tharg’s lawyers wrote a snarky letter Threatening Action that the filmmakers put a credit in for, uh, Kevin O’Neil and someone else. If it had been an American film, they might have gotten away with stealing it, but it was Palace Pictures, and they were trying to sell a Brit sci-fi film to British sci-fi fans: far too close to home for any light-fingered shenanigans. Also missed out on months of publicity from the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, because they tried to rip them off and the film was already on the brink of release by the time the 2000AD connection was recognized. Brilliant.

Still, the real genius of all Future Shocks is that they *don't* go on for an hour and a half. Basing any film on just one 3-page story is to miss the point.

14:19 / 15.11.05

you fight everything...evil!
Swamp Thing

you know how some songs you hear the first line and just know something's good's about to happen, and then the second line comes along and...wow.

and brilliantly, the publishing money for that would have gone into the UK's cash-strapped Serious CropCircle Research community, who're always grateful for it. good old swamp thing. he's amazing.

16:41 / 15.11.05

I'm going to go out in an odd direction here, and suggest the old Acclaim comic QUANTUM & WOODY, by Christopher Priest. It's practically a buddy movie anyway, with Quantum playing straight man to Woody's antics.

16:48 / 15.11.05

Was there really a Swamp Thing cartoon? Or was that song just used in the Swampy movies? Or the song was not used in any Swamp Thing product whatsoever but man, it should be?

17:42 / 15.11.05

Finderwolf: Yes there really was a Swamp Thing cartoon. I'm not sure how related to the comic book it was though.

I'm always quite reserved when wishing that my favourite comic books had a filmic counterpart. There's often such a disparity in quality between the end product and the original comic that in the end alot of them are best left alone. I mean in general comic book movies are a terrible idea aren't they?
That being said WATCHMEN!!!
(following the original plot of course)
I also used to quite like Night Zero from 2000ad. That noirish/cyberpunk landscape is prime for adaption in the wake of Sin City IMHO.

17:58 / 15.11.05

Quantum playing straight man to Woody's antics.

Round here I play straight man to *everyone's* antics.
I got some old copies of that because it had my name in, but it was a bit pants IIRC.

I'd like to see a modern, high-budget Silver Surfer movie, Galactus-tastic! Or a Tim Burton adaptation of JTHM, yeah...

18:02 / 15.11.05

...and by the way if there's anything from 2000AD to adapt it's Zenith...

18:32 / 15.11.05

Quantum, you spelt Strontium Dog wrong there.

18:44 / 15.11.05

Who would play Johnny Alpha? How would it not be camp? Wouldn't Bad Company be better? That's Z E N I T H, I say again.

18:59 / 15.11.05

Zenith would be good if they did it in a 1989-stylee. Shot on video, framed like a Smash Hits photoshoot, and with a Stock Aitken Waterman soundtrack. But updating it in any way would spell DOOOOM.

Steve Coogan to play Johnny Alpha, by the way. Playing it dead straight while all these rubbery Jim Henson muppety creatures jabber on around him.

19:10 / 15.11.05

JHTM would be good if made by Burton. But would Depp play the title role?

There was talks of a Judge Anderson film way back when. I seem to remember Nicole Kidman was even an option for the title role at one point. It never seemed to materialise however, a pity.

19:28 / 15.11.05

Can we get a Green Lantern movie already? I mean, damn. What's the use of building CGI dinosaurs and aliens and shit if you can't give a man a ring that manifests giant green boxing gloves?

19:39 / 15.11.05

A Batman movie where everybody doesn't figure out who the fuck is behind the mask.

Or, in the case of Marvel, a Spider-man movie where his mask stays on his face for more than five fucking minutes.

20:19 / 15.11.05

Must...go...hunt...down...web pages...on....Swamp Thing....cartoon....

miss wonderstarr

20:30 / 15.11.05

Actually it wasn't a Future Shock, but "Walter's Robo-Tales".

By Rogan and O'Neill, apparently. The strip here.

As a young 2000AD fan watching the Edinburgh film fest premiere of this underwhelming film I was outraged by the rip-off and subsequently gratified to see the inspiration given credit.

I'm always wary of the idea that because a comic's great, it'd be great to see it on the screen. Zenith draws to a great extent on an understanding and appreciation of superhero conventions -- especially in Phase III. How many non-comics readers would "get" anything about Phase III?

21:17 / 15.11.05

Unfortunately most of the comics I want to see turned into movies are purely for my - and a small set of others - benefit, and would probably neither sell to, nor be comprehendable easily by, a mainstream big audience.
'Zenith', 'Marvel Boy', 'Planetary', 'Enigma', 'X-Statix', or even 'Transmetropolitan' simply require too much specialist awareness... or a willingness to let things be interpreted on the fly, as they come, without worrying about how you're supposed to interpret them.
Jack Kirby's Fourth World material is killed by the watered down versions we got with 'Star Wars' and 'Masters of the Universe'.
'Preacher' just begs to be mutilated and dumbed down even further, if it were rendered by Hollywood.
Nobody but me wants a Typhoid Mary flick and you can't cast real flesh-and-blood folks as Harlock or Emeraldas. Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters: The Movie... just ain't gonna happen. The odds are against a cinematic treatment of Batman/Predator or Predator/Tarzan or whatever other cool cross-over book... you can't even get a decent Superman/Batman movie into theatres.

You know what I'd like to see? A movie adapting 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' for the big screen. That'd be nice and innovative, it would.

21:58 / 15.11.05

Jack Kirby's Fourth World material is killed by the watered down versions we got with 'Star Wars' and 'Masters of the Universe'.

Wait. Jack Kirby invented He-Man and Skeletor? If that's even remotely true, that's the greatest thing I've ever heard.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:30 / 15.11.05

Yes there really was a Swamp Thing cartoon. I'm not sure how related to the comic book it was though.

I believe that Rick Veitch gave Swamp Thing a hovercraft which fired missiles.

Quite right on the nicking of Hardware - a credit was added for the video release, I think. On Strontium Dog, there are a number of audio plays starring Johnny Alpha (the audio play is another medium we haven't explored which might work well with things with a preexisting and strong visual style - short of covering people's profiles with Lego bricks, how would you recreate the look of Carlos Ezquerra's black and white work?). Alpha is voiced by Simon Pegg. No, honest.

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