Okay, that may be overstating it slightly, but comic book properties are getting a lot more attention in the last few years. The encouraging thing is that they are usually not being given a campy treatment, but rather are presented in a manner more consistent with the source material.
Mostly this is evident in the movies – Iron Man, Spider-man, Watchmen, X-men, The Spirit, Green Lantern, Superman, and many, many more examples have been trotted out in recent years, many of them very successfully. There have been others that are sourced from graphic novels but aren’t super-heroes. Usually those go out without most people realizing they are watching an adaptation.
I’m sure it’s happened before, but now TV is getting into the act. In the fall, Fox will be airing the show Human Target, which is based on a graphic novel. I don’t know anything about the graphic novel itself, but this trailer makes me want to see the show.
That really looks like a good show, to me (and it’s got Six in the premier, so it’s got that goin’ for it). I’d love to see some other non-super-hero graphic novels come to TV. The Losers, or 100 Bullets, for instance, would make exciting episodic TV. They’ve got great arc stories behind them, but could be mostly broken down into individual episodes, with a bit of embellishment here and there. (In fact, they would both need to be toned down for TV.) To do either of those as movies would likely do harm to the overall story as it have to be compacted too much.
What graphic novels would you like to see translated to live action? Do you think it would be better served as a TV show or a movie?
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Jeff, a quibble about your wording on this article (sorry you know I’m something of a purists) … you keep supplying a context of ‘graphic novels’, but the majority of the titles you bring up are really just comic/pop culture icons that drive a movie idea. I don’t think Iron Man, Spiderman, Superman, etc. were ever based on a story arc first told in graphic novel or single issue form. The distinction is important. Movie like Watchman, 300, V for Vendetta, and Sin City are based on single, self-contained, stories and are not tied to the larger pop-culture movement of milking super hero icons for every profitable sequel they can get out.
Iron Man, Spidey, SuperMan, Batman, etc. movies were created as movies first. Sometimes graphic novels come out after the fact, but in these cases they are little more then the story boards used to plan the movie. My opinion is these graphic novels have a hard time reflecting the richness that may be found (hopefully) in the movie. The graphic novel to movie adaption takes the reverse tack with the movie following the novel and often lacking the richness found in the novel. Witness the Watchman movie and how it struggled to provide enough back story, time-period context, and deep characterizations. All of which were found in the novel. To my way of thinking these graphic novels are the better medium and Hollywood’s increasing use of graphic novels affirms this view. I support the later graphic novel with my wallet, but find I hardly ever support the graphic novel based on a movie (Aronofsky’s The Fountain is the only one I can think of).
Anyway, my recommendation for upcoming graphic novels to movies has to start with Surrogates, due to be released this September. The movie might stink (hopefully b willis leaves his John Mcclain character at home), but the graphic novel is such tremendously good sci-fi I can see why it was optioned for a movie.
Some others that would work well:
- Losers (as you already mentioned) would work well as a TV series.
- Fables would be awesome as an HBO or Showtime title.
- Transmetropolitan … I doubt this has crossed your radar yet, but I’ll be sharing soon. If you are fan of the late great Hunter S. Thompson, this is a must have.
- Northlanders (who wouldn’t love a Viking tale told with modern conventions)
- Planetary (this would put Torchwood to shame)
- Ex Machina – another more mature title that would do well on HBO or Showtime.
Hollywood should stop with the endless superhero sequels and start making movies, where the material is just as inventive (perhaps more so as the last few supe movies didn’t exactly set the bar very high), but the stories have teeth.
Daves latest blog post..Z-Word
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Jeff says:
June 9th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Dave! I was hoping you’d chime in on this one. I knew I wasn’t providing appropriate examples for the most part, but I was kind of rushing through this one and trusted that someone would come along to clarify. So thanks for that.
I am a little confused about your second paragraph, though. Are you speaking specifically of graphic novel adaptations of the more recent movies? Because I know that the comics predated any movies for those characters, and at least some of them had actual graphic novels prior to the movies as well (Dark Knight [the book] qualifies, right?) – though none of those were directly adapted.
I haven’t run across Surrogates yet… gotta look that one up.
I think Northlanders would work well as a movie. Maybe a TV series, but I’d lean to the movie.
I’m blanking on Planetary… have I seen that one?
Ex Machina – yeah, that’d be a good show, and that’s just from the few issues I’ve read so far.
Fables – I think you’re right that it would work best on HBO or Showtime. Great stuff. (Btw, Pam’s almost done… can you believe it?!)
The superhero movies are still generally more spectacle than substance, but I do think that’s changing. The Dark Knight is the leader there. I still enjoy them and want them to keep being made, but I also agree with your last sentiment in that other (often excellent) material is likely being ignored while the suits focus on recognizable heroes that already have some brand recognition.
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Dave says:
June 10th, 2009 at 7:11 am
I wrote that post in hurry and upon re-reading the thing I’m surprised there is any sense to made from it.
- Surrogates. I’m sure you’ve heard me drone on about this before. I would have shared by now, but this was one of the titles that got lost by the post office in that infamous damaged shipment from Texas. It ran as a five or six issue mini-series and made for an excellent self-contained story. There is supposedly a new edition of the collected graphic novel coming out, to tie in with the movie. I hope to pick this up as this is a story worth having, and hopefully the publisher will include some script samples, concept art, etc.
- As for the second paragraph … The big blockbuster comic-based movies have no continuity with the stories told in the comics (or GNs). They are based on the pop-culture representations of comic characters. If you take a story like Fables and make a movie that does not tell a story from the graphic novel it won’t ‘feel’ like Fables. Of course, I also argue that a literal translation of Fables to the big screen would lose the ‘richness’ I’m so fond of. So who knows what I’m saying (I don’t)?
So I’m rushing again, but a few quick responses.
- The Dark Knight Returns movie was completely different than the plot found in Frank Miller’s GN of the same name. They both had a motorcycle and that is were the similarity ends.
- You’ve seen Planetary. Main character is Elijah Snow (dressed all in white), who leads a team of super-hero archaeologists to investigate strange and mysterious findings.
Daves latest blog post..Z-Word
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Jeff says:
June 10th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Right! Planetary… yeah that was a good one. I totally agree that would translate pretty well to TV.
As to the Batman stuff
1. The movie title and the GN title were the same (Dark Knight, no Returns).
2. I wasn’t saying the movie was based on the book. You’re right, it wasn’t. I was just saying it qualified as a GN, despite being pop-culture icon derived. But that was in response to something you apparently weren’t saying anyway, so…. moving on.
I’m with you on the Fables thing. I don’t think a literal translation would work. I also don’t think a movie of Fables would work. A series, perhaps, but it would also have to be different in some respects to the book. If done right, it could be excellent, though you’d have to go into it expecting it to feel a bit different than the books.
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I’m going to go with Marvel’s Runaways.
Although I admit there is a reluctance to wish for it as it is so perfect in the first two volumes of that book that it is easy to imagine them stuffing it up. I would prefer a larger budget television show or mini-series as the story works in serialized format.
I love how elements of Hulk: Gray were used in the film Incredible Hulk, specifically the cave sequence in the rain, the DVD has comic book frames comparing the scenes in the film which being a huge fan of the Gray story and art I recognised immediately when watching the film.
I think what Dave is saying regarding the second paragraph is that the specific storyline in the movies mentioned is not from a contained ‘graphic novel’ as such but there are movie tie in graphic novels released after the movie but not as the source material. It also comes down to what you constitute as a ‘graphic novel’ – some argue that a ‘graphic novel’ is produced specifically for that purpose and that the better term for what are commonly referred to as graphic novels would be ‘trade paperbacks’ (a collection of previously published comics that form a single narrative or story arc). Personally I’m not too sensitive and use graphic novel to describe all of them collectively anyway.
To echo Dave’s thoughts I personally prefer the graphic novel format with my comic books for a richness in background that can’t generally be transfered to a film medium. A film can very well stand alone as the movie Iron Man showed, only the theme of the series was drawn on, the Watchmen movie tried to be a literal translation of the book which was a mistake in that Watchmen was written to be a graphic novel. Of course sticking to the source material a little closer certainly wouldn’t have hurt League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
That’s why I think I also favor serialized television for a book like Runaways, not enough background could be captured and built on in a straight film.
Lees latest blog post..Five bands that are always on my iPhone
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Jeff says:
June 9th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Sadly, I still haven’t read Runaways. Maybe Dave can help me rectify that…
LXG… what a waste.
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Lee says:
June 9th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
I highly recommend the first two volumes of Runaways, the third ‘Whedon’ volume wasn’t as strong in my opinion and the current issues don’t seem as good unfortunately. Avoid spoilers at all cost and that first volume is awesome.
Another Marvel series released at the same time was Sentinel which easily could be an excellent series too.
Lees latest blog post..Five bands that are always on my iPhone
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Dave says:
June 10th, 2009 at 7:12 am
+1 to Runaways. Jeff I can certainly hook you up. I haven’t followed the third volume, but vol1 and 2 are excellent fare.
Daves latest blog post..Z-Word
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