View Full Version : The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen is go!
Arch Stanton
21-02-2002, 21:50
From today's Hollywood reporter...
20th Century Fox has closed a deal with Sean Connery for the actor to topline the Steve 'Blade' Norrington-directed "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Shooting is scheduled to start in the summer on the Don Murphy-produced project, budgeted in the $80 million range. Scripted by James Robinson, "Gentlemen" is described as a period-piece "X-Men." It is understood that Connery's deal includes sequel commitments. "Gentlemen" is based on the Alan Moore-penned Victorian era-set comic book about various literary protagonists -- including Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll, Allan Quatermain and Mina Harker -- called upon by Queen Victoria to thwart an evil madman. Connery had been in talks with the studio about the project (HR 1/25).
Ironicly to save cost's the film will use the Victorian London sets already built for 'From Hell'. Which was ( very very losely ) based on another Alan Moore comic.
I should imagine Connery will play the Opmium addicted Alan Quartermain.
If this is done well, it could be excellent - The comic strip is a superb piece of work. However, I bet they make significant changes. I can't see the invisible man's infamous introductory episode going down to well with the studio execs, and the whole lack of political correctness may be tidied up. :(
Still, Norrington could do it well. I'd love to have seen Gilliam's take on it, though.
Hmmm, I suspect Alan Moore could become the new Stephen King - famed for poor big screen adaptations of his acclaimed work. From Hell was verging on awful, especially if you read the Moore - Campbell piece going in. And I agree with Arch - very, very very loosely based on it - infact, really only the title, the twist finale (merely hinted at in the novel) and two storyboarded scenes (humping against a fence and falling asleep on a clothes line) were taken from Moore's masterpiece.
Let's hope they are smart enough to stick to Moore's blueprint on this one if it does in fact go ahead.
The Moore comic that cries out for a Lord of The Rings style cinematic series is his awesome Ballad of Halo Jones - imagine that as a three part sci-fi spectacular brought to life on the big screen!
Arch Stanton
22-02-2002, 12:55
24hrs after greenlighting the film thier allready buggering it up.
The Studio is insisting on having some American's in the film. So now added to the group is Detective Tom Swayer.
Details here (http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/354226p1.html)
Dan Druff
22-02-2002, 13:00
Originally posed by McD
From Hell was verging on awful, especially if you read the Moore - Campbell piece going in.
I thought it was an excellent movie (link (http://thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52638)) and as you know I read the novel. It takes (many) liberties yes, but the abject squalor and sheer desperation of life in Whitechapel circa 1888 is well served by both the movie and its inspiration.
I never read League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but Norrington made a good job of Blade IMHO.
jonathan.e
22-02-2002, 13:43
This is good news and I believe Norrington has the right sensibility for the job as has James Robinson if it’s the same one that wrote the comic book Starman. I see Connery more as Nemo though, having done a bit of prep work in Hunt for Red October ;)
anyone seen this yet?
i've never heard of this before and thought it sound interesting. not a bad movie, but very weird.
very cool bits in it though :)
danielzavitz
27-07-2003, 20:43
i've seen it, reasonable and far from awful. it dragged a bit in places and both tom sawyer and the invisible man irritated me but stuart townsend was great, which is doubly surprising as i hate him.
I saw it on opening night (I was in the US at the time)
Much better than T3, IMHO.
Creamstick
27-07-2003, 21:28
Originally posted by danielzavitz
i've seen it, reasonable and far from awful. it dragged a bit in places and both tom sawyer and the invisible man irritated me but stuart townsend was great, which is doubly surprising as i hate him.
I agree with everything here - It's one of those movies that you wouldn't really go out of your way to see, but you would watch if it was on Sky, or you got to the cinema, and the film you wanted to see was sold out.
It's okay, nothing more - although compared to the source material, it's like re-writing Anna Karenina as an episode of Teletubbies.
I'm a little late but...this was on Film4 at the weekend and, jeez, no wonder Connery retired.
It was Avengers-style awful. Stuart Townsend's portrayal of Dorian Grey aside, it's a horrible mess. Someone should do a study of exactly why some movies end up stinking to high heaven, it's a fascinating subject IMO.
A dudsville script I suppose, but then why does no one spot that in time? There must be more to it than that.
Mr Majestik
01-02-2007, 12:41
I liked it alot
Read the comics then say the films good.
you don't need to have read the comics to know this is a stinker.
playaslaya
01-02-2007, 14:14
Read the comics then say the films good.
Exactly, the comics literally are in another league!
Exactly, the comics literally are in another league!
And? It's an entertaining movie in it's own right
Spooky_uk
01-02-2007, 15:28
holy thread resurrection batman :eek:
Mr Majestik
01-02-2007, 16:09
And? It's an entertaining movie in it's own right
it's a bit like say 'Ray' from X factors version of My way is brilliant when you've never the original.
playaslaya
01-02-2007, 16:23
And? It's an entertaining movie in it's own right
I found the film average at best and for a film that could have potentially been amazing it makes it even more disappointing. I feel sorry for Norrington, Blade was great, I'm sure he could have made a better film if he didn't cast Connery and the resulting fights they had.
nwgarratt
01-02-2007, 16:40
And? It's an entertaining movie in it's own right
Yes it was.
Could have been very good indeed, but is almost unwatchable with the plot holes and mistakes ratchetting my suspension of disbelief to breaking point as it defies it's own logic time after time.
Shame, I wanted to like it.
nwgarratt
01-02-2007, 17:00
Could have been very good indeed, but is almost unwatchable with the plot holes and mistakes ratchetting my suspension of disbelief to breaking point as it defies it's own logic time after time.
Shame, I wanted to like it.
I disagree. It was as a good example of the steampunk genre.
It was a good example of how to take a brilliantly researched, written and drawn comic book and cock it up.
One of the worst films I've ever seen. While it starts out bad enough, it goes completely off the rails when the action moves to Venice. People were saying Van Helsing was bad, but it's hard to imagine it could be worse than this.
It's the kind of exposure that gives comics a bad name.
MrHat001
02-02-2007, 10:56
It's a shame as turning good comics into films really shouldn't be that difficult.
It's pretty much a rough storyboard for the director to use as the basis for the film. But many just seem to pick up on the premise for the comic and then run with their own ideas.
Be interesting to see how 'Watchmen' turns out if they start filming next year.
new forms
02-02-2007, 11:26
I'm one of the few that found this entertaining, does it match up to the comics? No, but I enjoyed it anyway. Connnery was seriously miscast but other than that I found there to be enough in the film to favour.
I didn't think it was thatbad, I quite enjoyed it. When I told Jason Flemming he was suprised I liked it because everyone told him it was crap!
nwgarratt
02-02-2007, 11:53
It's a shame as turning good comics into films really shouldn't be that difficult.
It's pretty much a rough storyboard for the director to use as the basis for the film. But many just seem to pick up on the premise for the comic and then run with their own ideas.
But then people would complain as it isn't original and they knew what was going to happen if they read the comics beforehand. Anyway, they will always be stuff in comics that can't be translated to screeen due to time, budget etc.
Mr Majestik
02-02-2007, 12:44
But then people would complain as it isn't original and they knew what was going to happen if they read the comics beforehand. .
Never saw that come up in any Sin City reviews.
Never saw that come up in any Sin City reviews.
Yeah everytime a new version of Pride & Prejudice comes along it gets a critical panning because of that. :thinking:
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