75 Comics That Are Being Made Into Films

brumgrunt writes "The comic book is the new spec script in Hollywood, if this list is anything to go by. Den Of Geek has uncovered 75 comics that are in the process of being turned into films, along with their estimated year of arrival. It's scary, brilliant and bizarre in roughly equal measure."

Comments

"In the Process?"

[eldavojohn]

that are in the process of being turned into films

Keep in mind that the "process of being turned into films" is a long and difficult one where many projects get axed at every stage. And I'm sure <5% of these see theaters--hell look at how long it took The Watchmen (arguably the greatest comic book ever) to get off the ground!

Although I'm sure with the recent success of movies like X-Men, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, etc that script writers are rushing back to their desks to find any unexploited comic book series that their pen can interpret.

I cringe at the thought.

I'm reminded of so many bad action flicks from my youth, so many cheesy war movies of my young adult life, so many bad Uwe Boll video game turned movies and now I've already suffered from Batwoman & Daredevil ... with more to come.

Seriously, could Hollywood once--just for like a year--come out with only original semi-risky ventures? I mean, can we go one year without another recycled video game, without another tired sequel of an already diluted franchise, without another rehashed Mike Myers persona that's really just Austin Powers, etc. I mean, is that too much to ask?

Re:"In the Process?"

[altloser]

You do know that Watchmen is gonna suck?

Re:"In the Process?"

[Spazztastic]

You do know that Watchmen is gonna suck?

Some of us try to be optimistic about it before tracking down the director to tar and feather them.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Loibisch]

Yeah, just like every Comic adaption sucks...right? right?

(*cough* Batman, Spiderman, Sin City, 300, ...)

Re:"In the Process?"

[Hognoxious]

Comics? Those are graphic novels, if you don't mind.

Re:"In the Process?"

[elrous0]

Hollywood is greedy, stupid, and unoriginal. As with the videogame industry, any success is going to be followed immediately with a slew of wannabes and knock-offs.

The good news is that there are still great movies being made. But you're probably not going to find them among the "tentpole" pictures with $100 million budgets. Hollywood isn't going to take a risk with that kind of budget, they're going to play it safe. And right now, PG-13 comic book movies are as close a thing to a safe bet as the studios know of.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

You know, some of us are not so insecure about our hobbies that we feel the need to make up new words to describe them because them.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Comics? Those are graphic novels, if you don't mind.

Right because nobody knew what he was talking about. And "comic" is a dirty slur that was used to oppress readers historically so we need to eradicate that word from our minds & vocabulary.

Do you also object to "pulp magazine?"

Re:"In the Process?"

[neuromanc3r]

Someone (I think it was Neil Gaiman) once said that "graphic novel" is to comic what "lady of the night" is to prostitute.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, did you just give 300 as an example of a movie that doesn't suck?

Re:"In the Process?"

[camperdave]

You know, some of us are not so insecure about our hobbies that we feel the need to make up new words to describe them because them.

Whereas some of us know that there is a significant difference between ten pieces of colored newsprint stapled together, and a ninety page perfect bound book on quality paper containing a complete lack of sea-monkey ads.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

So it basically all boils down to print quality, then?

Re:"In the Process?"

[KDR_11k]

Ninety pages is a bit tiny for a book, I've seen magazines with more pages than that.

Also Asterix comes with a hardcover and that's definitely a comic.

Re:"In the Process?"

[laughing_badger]

Keep in mind that the "process of being turned into films" is a long and difficult one where many projects get axed at every stage.

"making a movie is like trying to cook a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it" Douglas Adams

Re:"In the Process?"

[Anpheus]

And torture porn in October.

Saw 33, coming soon to a theatre near you.

Re:"In the Process?"

[potHead42]

No. It's the sea monkeys, of course!

Re:"In the Process?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh... That's not what we're doing.

A "comic book" is pretty accurately defined as a mass-produced, slim, stapled funny book that costs about four bucks, has only 22 pages of actual content, is full of ads nobody pays any attention to, and focuses on the difficult lives of grown men and women who insist on wearing spandex, capes, and little pointy boots everywhere they go. Comic books are traditionally created by large teams; one artist does the pencil work, another does the inking, yet another does the coloring, then someone does the lettering, and somebody else does the writing. This team is often changed month to month, with the effect that comics are really not art per se, but rather, a manufactured form of entertainment.

A "graphic novel" on the other hand, is usually the work of one person (or a small group of friends). The same small group does all the work, and tends to stay involved with the work for its entire duration, so it's consistent and high quality. The writing tends to be much better because these people are writing for themselves and other people like them (rather than the "design by committee" you get with a commercial comic book). People who work on graphic novels tend to take more risks, try out more radical ideas, and be deeper philosophically than their purely commercial counterparts. Also they tend to AVOID writing about people who wear capes, spandex, and pointy little shoes. Their work is much closer to "reality" than the alternative. It also tends to target an adult audience; this has been true since the '70s, when graphic novel writers and artists were able to ignore the Comics Code and sell their work in specialty shops (where comic companies had to make everything G rated so they could sell in grocery stores).

Think of it this way: comic books are "Harry Potter". Graphic novels are "The Grifters" by Jim Thompson. Get it?

Re:"In the Process?"

[elrous0]

Personally, the stunts and special effects have gotten so over-the-top that they take me "out" of the movies now. Granted, fight and chase scenes in actions movies have always been over-the-top. But stunts and effects have gone so far in one-upmanship that these scenes have become less thrilling than comical. The average human fistfight now looks more intense than the fight between the two terminators in Terminator 2 (and those guys were super-strong and built of titanium alloys). And chase scenes routinely involve jumps and falls that no human being could withstand in anything more than lunar gravity.

The Die Hard movies are the perfect example. The Die Hard series started out as a incredibly unlikely, but nonetheless at least mildly plausible. But by the third film, the characters were taking 50-foot leaps off bridges and routinely taking beatings that would have required immediate hospitalization (if not embalming services) for anyone even vaguely mortal. The last entry was particularly egregious. There is a fight scene in that one that makes the Terminator 2 fight scene look modest by comparison. I expect that by the next one, John McClain will be catching bullets fired at him with his teeth and the fight scenes will involve people being punched through bank vault walls.

Re:"In the Process?"

[maxume]

I look forward to Bruce Willis running over the bad guys with his wheel chair.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Kierthos]

The movie 300 was an adaptation of the graphic novel 300, which in turn was based both upon the actual battle at Thermopylae AND inspired by the 1962 movie The 300 Spartans, which Frank Miller saw when he was young.

It's not exceptionally historically accurate (as the Spartans didn't die alone in the final battle, Xerxes was not a 7-foot tall bald gay man, etc.) but it's not a bad movie or a bad graphic novel.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Glothar]

It's not exceptionally historically accurate...

In other news: FOX News is not exceptionally biased toward the politically conservative.

To be clear: I would say that 300 is about as historically accurate as FOX News is "Fair and Balanced". That is to say: It's true, on occasion, but it's far outweighed by all the times it's not.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Kierthos]

One of the reviews I read of 300 said Gladiator (the Russell Crowe movie) was more historically accurate... thus fulfilling my weekly quota of wishing I could strangle a movie reviewer.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

Get it?

Yes, like I said, I get very well that you are so insecure about your interests that you have to make up new words and write long, long explanations about how the things you like are much better than those things others like which look exactly the same.

Seriously, get over yourself. You're reading comics. Some comics are sillier than others, and some are deeper than others, but they're all comics. And you're allowed to like comics! You don't need to make up elaborate justifications! Just enjoy what you like and ignore what you don't like, and stop worrying about how to label things.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

Uh huh. Right-o. So, you're into spandex, capes, and little pointed booties I guess.

There you go again, trying to show everyone how you're so much better because of what you read.

But sorry, dude, I don't read any of that. I probably read stuff that's far more obscure than you do, but I really feel no need at all to make any kind of point of that. What I read are comics. I like some of them, I don't like others, but I don't for a second think this makes me any better than anyone else, nor do I look down on others for reading the things I don't enjoy.

Hobbies and interests are not a popularity contest. You don't get points for liking some things and not others. Your interests should serve only to make yourself happier, not as some kind of measure of your worth as a person compared to anyone else.

Re:"In the Process?"

[canajin56]

Without cool stunts that have never been done before, there will be no new fodder for "Movie Myths" episodes of Mythbusters! Don't you dare try to take away what could be Grant's one and only chance to build a bank vault punching robot. (You mention catching bullets in teeth but that's already been done with explosive results).

Re:"In the Process?"

[doctrbl]

It's not exceptionally historically accurate...

In other news: FOX News is not exceptionally biased toward the politically conservative.

To be clear: I would say that 300 is about as historically accurate as FOX News is "Fair and Balanced". That is to say: It's true, on occasion, but it's far outweighed by all the times it's not.

The movie 300 wasn't based on history, it needn't be historically accurate. It's a movie from a comic book called 300, by Frank Miller. This comic isn't a historical documentary either; it's a work of fiction to be read primarily for entertainment (imho).

The movie 300 is very faithful to the book it came from, and so is an accurate rendering of it.

In short the two questions at hand are:

What was the film portraying?

How well was the portrayal; how accurate was it to its' base material?

For 300, the film portrayed the comic book (not history), and did a good job of it. The Sin City film adaptation was also accurate in this respect; you can open the comic and see the panels shot on the screen. For FOX, you'd need to answer these same questions... what is it trying to show, and is it giving you an accurate rendition of that? Personally I prefer "journalists" and "reporters" to "news commentators", but you shouldn't listen to anyone without using the old critical thinking...

Re:"In the Process?"

[danieltdp]

So comics = microsoft; graphic novel = linux?

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

What I am suggesting to you is NOT that I am better or special because I'm interested in material designed to be read by adults.

Then why are you making so much noise about how you like it?

By the way, if you "don't read any of that" how exactly do you justify saying a few seconds later that "what I read are comics"?

Because perhaps "comics" is a generic term to most people, much like "music"? Most people don't think a "comic book" is some specific kind of publication. It's a book with comics in it. And that's what a graphic novel is, and that's what a superhero magazine is, and that's what a european comic album is, and that's what a manga tankubon is.

By the way, and this is very funny, you DO think something you do "makes you better than anyone else" -- specifically, you think that believing you're NOT better than anyone else makes you BETTER than people who DO think they're better than others.

If that is so, how is that inconsistent with anything I've said so far? I didn't say I didn't think anything made me a better person. I specifically said that I don't think that what I enjoy reading does.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Classical music is not the same as rap music. But they're both still music. Graphic Novels are not the same as Superman or X-men, but they're still both comic books.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

People like you, who cannot or will not discern between similar but different things, are a significant problem in the world today. Because of people like YOU, things like graphic novels are associated with childish superhero comics by the majority of the public, and therefore are limited in popularity here in the U.S.

A significant problem? Really?

In contrast, in Europe and Japan, and in most of Asia in fact, the distinction between kiddie comics and adult graphic novels is very well understood and the medium is much more respected there.

Funny thing, you know: I'm from Europe. And you know? Nobody here feels the need to use words like "graphic novel". It's all "comics". Comics for children, comics for adults, nobody feels the need to make up special words for them.

Re:"In the Process?"

[idontgno]

My background and cultural heritage is Japanese, and I concur... manga is the entire continuum between 20-page kiddy pulps and glossy books full of a variety of subjects (romance, superhero, tentacle pr0n, etc.)

I think you're right. There's a large element of "comic book store guy" elitism in the "graphic novel" crowd. And generally speaking, it's based on fallacious distinctions.

Re:"In the Process?"

[Goaway]

The European guy who keeps arguing with me is clueless. He has no idea how things work over here.

Wait, so now you're not keeping track of who you're talking to, and you're talking about me behind my back?

You're a real class act, dude.

Akira

[hansamurai]

Akira (2011)
Leonardo DiCaprio disappointed many fans of Katsuhiro Otomo's 80s manga strip by declaring that he won't be in this, though his Appian Way production company has set SFX wizard Ruairi Robinson to direct. The title character is a child of God-like powers who may have started the third world war that decimated the 'Neo-Tokyo' that biker gangs skirt round. Blade Runner-tastic. Appian Way are also developing...

Wait, what? There were people that wanted to see him star in this?

Re:Akira

[Andr T.]

Does Akira die frozen in the end? That would amuse the fans.

Re:Akira

[Psmylie]

Which, with DiCaprio's huge forehead, makes him a shoe-in for Tetsuo. Especially at the end, where he goes out of control :P

Re:Akira

[Cyno01]

If you can get over Titanic, hes actually a damn good actor.

Years ago i heard he was going to be playing tony stark in iron man (that obviously didnt happen), and i thought that was a terrible idea.

Untill i saw The Aviator.

good grief

[nomadic]

Elfquest? Wonder Woman? Shazam? Shazam!?! Don't these people actually think ahead as to how silly some of these things will look on the big screen?

Re:good grief

[KermodeBear]

While Shazam would be silly (I honestly don't know a thing about the comic itself, but the name alone makes me wince), ElfQuest has some potential. There's a lot of story to follow. It could be a LotR-style production. That said, Comic Book -> Movie conversions are generally craptacular, so...

What I would like to see brought to the Silver Screen is The Invisibles. I have been reading through the books lately and it is absolutely fantastic. A good mix of plot, philosophy, action, fantasy, and characters. From what I understand, The Invisibles was part of the inspirational material for The Matrix.

It would be interesting to see The Sandman produced as well - just not by the BBC. They completely butchered Neverwhere, turning a fantastic novel into a complete piece of crap (as they often do).

Re:good grief

[para_droid]

just not by the BBC. They completely butchered Neverwhere, turning a fantastic novel into a complete piece of crap (as they often do).

Erm they made the TV series first. The novel was written later, based on the series. So I don't see how the BBC can be blamed for butchering a novel that didn't yet exist. And aside from the lack of budget, the series was pretty good.

Re:good grief

[hummassa]

I don't think you'll ever see The Invisibles in the silver screen...

Re:good grief

[sesshomaru]

If you've ever heard the term Shazam, before, then you should no that it's origin was in a comic book known as Captain Marvel. For a time, Captain Marvel was more popular than Superman. His powers were granted to him by a wizard, and Shazam refers to the mythological characters who grant him his strength (Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury). Billy Batson, mild mannered newsie, becomes Captain Marvel when he speaks this word.

Unfortunately, the World's Mightiest Mortal was felled, not by the arch-villain Dr. Sivana, but by the labyrinth of copyright laws. One of the current absurdities visited on us by the laws is that the right to use the name "Captain Marvel" for a comic book is not owned by the company (D. C.) that owns the rights to Captain Marvel. Therefore, they can produce a comic, or a movie based on a comic, with Captain Marvel as a hero... but they can't call it Captain Marvel!

Hence, Shazam, Captain Marvel's magic word, is often used as the title of his comic book, even thought the character is named Captain Marvel.

We will not speak of Alan Moore's Miracle Man, based on the British Marvelman, who was what the British Captain Marvel became after he lost his war against copyright in the United States. For his magic word was "Kitoma!" which is just Atomik spelled backwords.

and the butcher...er director for these films is

[aceofspades1217]

probably Uwe Boll's brother.

Dark Prophecy...

[Forrest Kyle]

Comic book movies appeared. They made boat loads of money. Drunken, sex addled movie moguls made seventy-five straight comic book movies. Seventeen in a row tank miserably. They never make another comic book movie again.

This is what I fear happening.

Re:few really kick-ass, some very pathetic

[Loibisch]

and this post also gives me lead about what movies are missed ...

Is "lead" the heavier form of "wood"?

even mediocre properties are snapped up

[jollyreaper]

Just shows how there's not an original bone left in that town. The comics are like elaborate storyboards anyway so let's do one but be sure to cut out anything involving taste and quality so as not to alienate our prime market of drooling mouth-breathers. And in twenty years we'll remake 'em all! Can't you just taste that money? Fuck, yeah.

Re:even mediocre properties are snapped up

[SputnikPanic]

Taste and quality? Such as Road To Perdition or A History of Violence, both of which were originally comics?

Comics encompass as broad a world as other forms of fiction and literature, it's not just all superheroes and science fiction. As far as Hollywood adaptations are concerned, the problem isn't so much a lack of originality -- although there is some truth to that claim -- it's that producers are risk averse.

Missing from the list

[dkleinsc]

Bluntman and Chronic

Seriously, it's scary when Kevin Smith accurately describes something.

So many already done....

[gfxguy]

Off the top of my head: Witchblade was a failed series on TNT, Red Sonja, Buck Rogers, Sherlock Holmes?

Oh... wait... are these going to actually be good versions?

Re:So many already done....

[hondo77]

Actually, I believe Witchblade was doing well. It just suffered from a lead actress who had some major personal issues.

ETA's?

[rangek]

Is it just me or are those ETA's totally bogus? There is no way those times can possibly be... possible. We have things with film in can the estimated to arrive the same time as stuff that doesn't even have a script yet. What a bunch of crap.

Dave Sim once said. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Well, he was quoting somebody else, but he DID say it. . .

The point being. . , comics are comics and movies are another animal entirely.

For every comics movie I've seen, I can never help but thinking, "This would have been more satisfying as an episodic TV series." Perhaps it's because comics rely heavily on word balloons and movies are actually quite conservative when it comes to dialogue, most being really just short stories. Episodic television offers enough canvas to do a more satisfying job with stories which are by definition, written as a series of short episodes anyway. A lot of drama and necessary timing can be included with a TV series which must by necessity be cut when planning a film.

I re-read Watchmen a few months ago when I heard about the film project, and it struck me that it was a story which would have done very well as a 6 or 12 part TV series. Not sure how they're going to manage to pack all of that into a movie without it feeling rushed. I guess we'll see.

-FL

I guess it's better than...

[solcott]

(Useful) Stupid Tricks to Get Your Comic Book Made into a Movie

75 more...

[nilbog]

"75 Comics That Are Being Forever Ruined, Raped, and Pillaged"

Fixed.

to all the naysayers in this thread:

[circletimessquare]

1. it is proven that comic book movie adaptations are a good return on the investment. therefore, from a strictly risk/ return financial analysis, you want to make a comic book movie as opposed to say, a mafia musical. therefore, any comic book property out there is going to get a good looking at, down to the fringe. it's inevitable, and what exactly then is the problem with mining comic book properties like that? what is the rationale for which you take offense at that?

2. you don't own your favorite comic book. if someone wants to turn it into a movie, why do you feel like something has been stolen from you? why do you think something will be ruined? just don't watch. why is that so difficult for you?

Re:to all the naysayers in this thread:

[lennier]

"if someone wants to turn it into a movie, why do you feel like something has been stolen from you?"

There *is* a rare commodity here, though, that has been 'used up', and that's the position of "only existing movie adaptation of [work X]".

It's a bit like brand identity. The value of the work seems to work out to something like 'number of realisations of that work in all media forms divided by total quality of all realisations'.

In 1977, there was only one 'Star Wars' movie, and a bunch of Star Wars toys. The value of Star Wars was 'very cool thing'.

In 2008, there's so much Star Wars merchandise you can't breathe, but there's only a handful of excellent works: the first two movies, the Timothy Zahn book trilogy, a couple of games. The rest are mediocre at best and the official prequels are dire. If you picked up a random Star Wars product, the expected value is somewhere between 'possibly very good' and 'most likely really really really bad'. Same with Dune: one good book, increasingly wandering sequels, atrocious cash-ins.

It seems like something of value really *has* been lost by the creation of a bad product that 'dilutes' the value of a particular brand as a means of identifying 'stuff I'm likely to like'.

It might be just *information* - indexing or metadata, a way of minimising the entropy of a search - that's lost, but as all IT people should know, that's a real loss.

Luther Arkwright

[szyzyg]

ONe of the greatest works of graphic literature has been picked up for movie adaptations on more than one occasion. I'd love to see this adapted, but then again It's probably impossible to do it justice....

http://www.superherohype.com/news.php?id=4514

Sorry for offtopic..

[azgard]

..but since we are talking about films, I would like to see Tim Burton's version of Hobbit. I can't imagine it, but I know it would be fantastic.

(If you agree, please spread this meme. :-))

Re:Barbarella

[tb3]

Oh frequently. And by robots and aliens, too. She's insatiable.

No, he's right

[Weaselmancer]

It will suck. Let me tell you why.

Listen to Kevin Smith talk about his work on the Superman Returns script.

He talks about meeting the producer for Batman, and Superman Begins. John Peters. Right around 13:00 or so he talks about presenting his script summary and how it was received.

And it was liked, but John said Kevin was missing some "action beats". He says that you need an action beat every ten pages. Something big needs to happen. This is how Hollywood thinks. Every ten pages of script, you need a fight scene. And listen to the absolutely stupid ideas that get thrown around.

This is why the Watchmen will suck.

Hollywood likes comic book movies because every ten minutes you are guaranteed to have an action scene. That's what superheroes do. It automatically meets the "action beats" criteria by default. That's why so many comics are being made into film. Every ten minutes someone gets in a big fight, or something explodes. Hollywood likes that.

But that's not what happens in The Watchmen. The Watchmen is a story about people. There isn't a lot of action. Hardly any, actually. This is a story about people. It has more in common with Clerks than it does with X-Men. Most of the story is people standing around talking. Character development.

Which is why Hollywood is going to fuck it up.

They're going to insist on their action beats. And that's not at all what the story is about.

Don't get me wrong. It will look pretty. It will have most of the story parallel the book. But mark my words - the heart and soul of the story will be ripped out. Most of the character development will be missing. And it will be replaced with a ten minute CGI battle of Dr. Manhattan pacifying Vietnam, or something similar.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but that's what's going to happen.

Re:No, he's right

[VxMorpheusxV]

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but if you're basing part of that pessimism off of that interview with Smith, perhaps you should take note that Smith has called the new Watchmen film Astounding. Its been said over and over again that its too hard to properly replicate the book's unique presentation, but it doesn't mean that the movie can't be good.

Re:No, he's right

[Eighty7]

And it was liked, but John said Kevin was missing some "action beats". He says that you need an action beat every ten pages. Something big needs to happen. This is how Hollywood thinks. Every ten pages of script, you need a fight scene. And listen to the absolutely stupid ideas that get thrown around.

Look, you don't like it, I don't like it, but it might be true. Look at all the recent high grossing movies. You don't like ignorant marketing people messing with your IT so don't mess with their marketing when you don't know what you're doing.

Re:No, he's right

[Weaselmancer]

You don't like ignorant marketing people messing with your IT so don't mess with their marketing when you don't know what you're doing.

You're trolling, but I'll bite anyways.

I do know what I'm doing. Why? Because I can read. When I read a story, I understand it. When the movie comes out and it's different, I notice. And when the changes subtract from the original story and were only made to "spice" up the story to hold on to the public's diminishing attention span, I have every right to stop and say, "Hey, you know what? That sucks."

It's actually pretty simple shit, hombre.

Re:No, he's right

[Eighty7]

Not everyone likes what you do, they have a worldwide audience to think of. Again, look at the recent high grossing movies. People really do like "action beats" & hollywood just picks up on that. If you don't understand why or you think it sucks, that doesn't make it any less true.

Except...

[Cyno01]

Kevin Smith has seen a pre-screening of Watchmen and said they got it right.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/08/15/kevin-smith-has-seen-watchmen-its-fking-astounding/