Twelve years after the first adaptation of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s acclaimed comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen turned out to be a terrible movie, inspired Moore to take his name off all future adaptations of his work and sent screen legend Sean Connery into retirement after decades of unforgettable hit movies, 20th Century Fox is going to try again.
Tracking Board reports that producer John Davis (Predator, Garfield) will take charge of the production on this second go around. No director has yet been attached. A previous attempt to turn The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen into a TV series back in 2013 never made it into the casting phase.
The original film was directed by Stephen Norrington (Blade) and made significant changes to the comic book, scrapping the original storyline entirely, turning Mina Harker into a vampire and adding new characters Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray. Although the film was not a box office disaster, eventually grossing $179 million internationally, it was a critical bomb that failed to produce any sequels, and was swiftly forgotten by the public.
Sean Connery has only appeared in one movie since The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, an animated feature called Sir Billi. Screenwriters Larry Cohen and Martin Poll sued 20th Century Fox for plagiarism, claiming that they had stolen the idea for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from an earlier script they had pitched to the company called Cast of Characters, which also featured a team of public domain literary characters. The studio settled out of court, much to the consternation of Alan Moore, who went on to request his name be taken off of future film adaptations of his many popular comic books, including Watchmen and Constantine.
Is this new adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen a good idea? Probably not, but that’s not to say that the property isn’t without promise, at least in the hands of a skilled filmmaker. Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s first two League stories, in particular, were excellent adventures that could be adapted faithfully to the screen, although some of the more sexually violent scenes would probably never make their way in front of the cameras. (The Invisible Man does something despicable to Pollyanna in the original mini-series.)
And it’s worth remembering that the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie was produced before faithful comic book adaptations had become the norm in Hollywood. With attitudes towards comic book movies having changed dramatically in the following decade, it’s entirely possible that a new adaptation might actually do Moore’s work justice. Or at least not screw it up COMPLETELY this time.
Then again, this new adaptation might never get off the ground at all. The last attempt to revitalize The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at 20th Century Fox – a pilot for a proposed 2013 television series – never even made it as far as the casting phase.
CraveOnline will be back with more developments on this breaking story, assuming of course that there actually are any.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
