Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Wil Wheaton on why Hollywood makes terrible comic book movies
August 2nd 2007 22:30
An interesting article by Wil Wheaton on the Suicide Girls website.
Yes, Wil Wheaton is the annoying kid from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and, yes, Suicide Girls is the soft-core girlie site that has cheesecakey photos of alternative girls. Combine the two, and it's a nearly unstoppable force.
Wheaton wrote about how a bunch of snotty Hollywood execs invaded the geek Mecca of ComicCon to do market research on the upcoming Watchmen movie.
Aside: Watchmen is an incredible comic book by Alan Moore that ripped the envelope open on what it meant to be a comic book. It's so pervasively aware of human emotions that it'll almost stop your heart. A movie adaptation could be very, very good or awful.
I suspect it'll be awful. The budget that it would need would dictate a big studio coming along, putting on a pushover director, signing some big stars that can't act and injecting it with what they know about the American population ("Can we put a talking dog in it? I feel like it's missing a talking dog. How about a wise-talkin' black guy? He can die at the end, too!")
Wheaton is skeptical about the upcoming movie, but has hope that the studios will do the right thing and listen to the geeks. But he also has a very important point about why Hollywood can never make a good comic book movie:
Amen!
He points out that it doesn't have to be bad... Lord of the Rings satisfied most of the Tolkien-nerds, but also brought the big action for the mainstream mob. Staying true to the source material will always get you fans.
Read the article!
*this image is from this site, and is of the Lego Watchmen!
Yes, Wil Wheaton is the annoying kid from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and, yes, Suicide Girls is the soft-core girlie site that has cheesecakey photos of alternative girls. Combine the two, and it's a nearly unstoppable force.
Wheaton wrote about how a bunch of snotty Hollywood execs invaded the geek Mecca of ComicCon to do market research on the upcoming Watchmen movie.
Aside: Watchmen is an incredible comic book by Alan Moore that ripped the envelope open on what it meant to be a comic book. It's so pervasively aware of human emotions that it'll almost stop your heart. A movie adaptation could be very, very good or awful.
I suspect it'll be awful. The budget that it would need would dictate a big studio coming along, putting on a pushover director, signing some big stars that can't act and injecting it with what they know about the American population ("Can we put a talking dog in it? I feel like it's missing a talking dog. How about a wise-talkin' black guy? He can die at the end, too!")
Wheaton is skeptical about the upcoming movie, but has hope that the studios will do the right thing and listen to the geeks. But he also has a very important point about why Hollywood can never make a good comic book movie:
"Now, it’s not entirely Hollywood's fault. It’s not that they don’t want to understand us, it’s that they’re incapable of understanding us. A studio fuck who wants to bury his face in a mountain of blow while two whores he picked up at the Rainbow Room spit on each other doesn’t live in the same world as a comic book geek who wants to bury his face in the collected works of Neil Gaiman while his girlfriend gets dressed up as slave girl Leia."
Amen!
He points out that it doesn't have to be bad... Lord of the Rings satisfied most of the Tolkien-nerds, but also brought the big action for the mainstream mob. Staying true to the source material will always get you fans.
"These stories that you buy and put on the big screen may just be numbers on a yearly accounting to you, but they are more than that to us. To us, they are something that brings us together and makes us part of an exclusive (and frequently stinky, unfortunately) club."
Read the article!
*this image is from this site, and is of the Lego Watchmen!
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Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
I read Wil's own blog and enjoy it very much. Thanks for the link to Suicide girls. (Wil's points in the article are well taken!)
Mis
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Any recommended links?
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
There is truth in his article, though with Zack Snyder doing Watchmen I think its safe to say we will have some glory......
The problem studios have with comics is that they aim the films at 10 year olds, when with writers like Moore and Miller it should be 25 year olds...thats why Sin City shines...and LXG, Constantine etc sucks
Comment by Stanley
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
My favorite is Wil Wheaton blog.
Mis
Comment by Nina
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Stan, testify!
Mis, thanks for the link
Nina, that's exactly right... it's the reduction of a great work into superficiality that is horrifying to watch...