re: dressing up a story to make it fly in comics/hollywood.

[mattx110]

hey. i was wondering, in the column, you say

"Yet there's a huge difference between, say, figuring out how to reconstruct your 19th century conspiracy thriller centered on the court of the Russian czars into a modern day war of superheroes and supervillains in downtown Manhattan and learning to think of, say, a crime story as a crime story instead of jumping it up in superhero or horror drag. "

does this say anything about the viability of comics or films based on 19th century espionage? i'm working on something that is both fun and educational, and has lots of cursing in russian... but i don't see it getting me a hollywood deal...

do you know something i don't know?

and btw, this isn't a joke, it just seems like it is... i figure with doctor who going nuts in the UK getting 30 brazillion viewers, period pieces could get some more heat behind em there. but hollywood just saw a whole bunch of 20th century spy stuff, and was like "who cares about the CIA?" Crimean war fanfic might not work. i could sell my soul to tom jane, but i'm not really asking about this for my sake. what's the cutting point for a comic idea being cared about?

[Steven Grant]

Like anything else, there's no way to tell in advance. My point was basically to do what you want, and let the chips fall where they may. Even if Warner Bros. doesn't want your idea, who knows? Maybe Fox will. Or the BBC. Maybe Angelina Jolie will call her agent one day and say, "I want to do a period piece set in 19th century Czarist Russia," and when they look around for material to option, your story will be what comes up. Stranger things have happened.

- Grant

[mattx110]

double post: maybe....

[mattx110]

Like anything else, there's no way to tell in advance. My point was basically to do what you want, and let the chips fall where they may. Even if Warner Bros. doesn't want your idea, who knows? Maybe Fox will. Or the BBC. Maybe Angelina Jolie will call her agent one day and say, "I want to do a period piece set in 19th century Czarist Russia," and when they look around for material to option, your story will be what comes up. Stranger things have happened.

- Grant

never was into her too much, but now i've got an angelina jolie fantasy...\

"oh yessssss... i'd love to personally finance and co-star in your moderately budgeted historical fiction film, lemme call plan B productions right now for your retainer. oh, and i totally read comic books."

thanks for the reply. i was kinda expecting something like "you've got no control over it anyway, hollywood is random", but you came off a bit more hopeful than that.
my ultimate goal is more tied to a novel, graphic or prose. but that doesn't mean i'd go "take your expanded audience for my work and go screw!"
plus, Marvel won't even think about publishing anything i do without a screen-writing credit:confused:

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Like anything else, there's no way to tell in advance. My point was basically to do what you want, and let the chips fall where they may. Even if Warner Bros. doesn't want your idea, who knows? Maybe Fox will. Or the BBC. Maybe Angelina Jolie will call her agent one day and say, "I want to do a period piece set in 19th century Czarist Russia," and when they look around for material to option, your story will be what comes up. Stranger things have happened.

- Grant

On the other hand, what if you've done a totally original piece... and Don Murphey wants to option it???

Your fans will have to spend the rest of their lives apologising/explaining the source material being on their shlves to non-comic reading friends.

[Steven Grant]

On the other hand, what if you've done a totally original piece... and Don Murphey wants to option it???

Then you find yourself a very good entertainment lawyer, and let the fans handle themselves however they like.

- Grant

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Then you find yourself a very good entertainment lawyer, and let the fans handle themselves however they like.

- Grant

Does no one else remember when selling out was bad?

[Steven Grant]

Does no one else remember when selling out was bad?

You having a psychotic episode or something?

This really depends on what you mean by selling out. A crappy film version of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN doesn't harm the comic in any way.

I've noticed that almost always those who speak of sacrifices that must be made, whether it's tightening the belt, going off to war, whatever, are very, very rarely those called on to make the sacrifices.

Likewise, those most concerned about the "evil" of "selling out" seem to always be those least likely to ever have the opportunity.

What constitutes "selling out"?

And what's with leaving messages just to leave messages? Did you find the fountain of youth or something?

- Grant

[mattx110]

artists and writers discovered they have more than one thought that would make a good story.

selling out one idea kills that idea. hopefully it makes you money so you can publish or produce more ideas. in the long run you can either enjoy what other people did to your work, or hate it. but it gives you an opporunity to take the reigns further down the line.

when the plan is "sustain my message and reach an audience" sometimes it's easier to do only one of those things. either you reach no audience, or you have your message corrupted. but it's a lot easier to do both, when you've accomplished the other.

frank miller did scripting for robocop 2 and 3. he will never watch those films again without crying a little.
now he's got his hands on the spirit and sin city has two planned sequels.
he did some film work, went back to comics and we got hard boiled, big guy and rusty, volumes of sin city, 300, martha washington, ronin and eventually went back to hollywood, well, texas with a grin on his face. a little selling out lead to some great un-sold out material and more recognition.

basically, this is 3 paragraphs when i could have left it at the first line. "creators have multiple thoughts" poets used to die at 30. now they see the check from their film options at 35.

[Steven Grant]

What Frank did with Robocop wasn't selling out. It was just a different experience, which had its unpleasant side but he learned a lot from it and has since put what he learned to good use.

Selling out is, oh, if you write, say, a treatise on the destruction of western civilization by capitalism (or communism, or vegetarianism, or whatever) but then because someone offers you a lot of money, you rewrite it into a stirring paean to whatever you were attacking before.

Selling out is if you claim to support the rights of, oh, Iranian-Americans to free speech, and then you join ranks calling for them to all be incarcerated and locked up because you'll be able to get some of their property for yourself if they're put away.

If you write a comic, then someone makes a bad movie from the story, hey, them's just the breaks. It's like playing roulette; sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Unless you're going back to your work and redoing it to adjust to whatever the bad movie version is, or even the good movie version, it doesn't constitute selling out. Any author's stories belong to him (unless contracted otherwise) and not to the readers! They're more along the lines of witnesses. Like I said, as long as the original story remains for readers to enjoy, how anyone else adapts it is just how anyone else adapts it. It doesn't reflect on or alter the original at all, except to perhaps publicize it.

- Grant

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

You having a psychotic episode or something?

The multiple posts?
I kept getting told that the posts hadn't gone through, so I kept clicking re-send, and then there was a million of them.


This really depends on what you mean by selling out. A crappy film version of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN doesn't harm the comic in any way.

Unless you wanted to keep selling copies of the book, and a lot of people are going to be put off by the film version.
Same with From Hell.
V For Vendetta (to stick with films based on Moore's works) I could see having people pick it up as it was quite popular (though I'm not sure why - and not in a 'they changed the comic' kinda way, I just thought it was a really poorly put together film, with no stand out qualities whatsoever... probably why it succeeded then.)

I've noticed that almost always those who speak of sacrifices that must be made, whether it's tightening the belt, going off to war, whatever, are very, very rarely those called on to make the sacrifices.

Likewise, those most concerned about the "evil" of "selling out" seem to always be those least likely to ever have the opportunity.

Except for Salinger.

Yeah okay, whatever. You'd jump at the oppurtunity to have your work turned into a bad film, cause it'd make you a quick buck, cool.
I find it odd that you wouldn't want to wait and see if someone who could make a good film would come along and do something with it, but fair enough.
It's just if Don Murphy options your film to produce, you know already it won't be good... the one bright star on his resume is Natural Born Killers, and that was over a decade ago.
The general public aren't going to be any more interested in your work, some might even be put off, and the royalty cheques will die out quick, as the film isn't going to have a strong resale value (good films continue to sell on DVD, regardless of box office takings).
And quite frankly, you'll have contributed to one more crappy film being out there.

If it's all about the money though, why are you bothering with comics?
I'd assume that in such a fringe industry, with a small audience, that money is a secondary concern.



What constitutes "selling out"?

Going for the quickest/biggest bucks you can, regardless.


And what's with leaving messages just to leave messages? Did you find the fountain of youth or something?

- Grant

See above.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

If you write a comic, then someone makes a bad movie from the story, hey, them's just the breaks. It's like playing roulette; sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

- Grant

It's a little easier to hedge your bets though with film.

Sure, there's the chance it will never get made, but you know which studios/producers are most likely make a good film and which are likely to make a bad one.
(Yes that is overly simplified, but certain names are always associated with shit, and some aren't).

[mattx110]

It's a little easier to hedge your bets though with film.

Sure, there's the chance it will never get made, but you know which studios/producers are most likely make a good film and which are likely to make a bad one.
(Yes that is overly simplified, but certain names are always associated with shit, and some aren't).

well... a desparate producer is gonna look at your work in a world where people are looking towards comics for ideas.

nobody knows what the next big thing is gonna be, so the people who need that next big thing are going to be more open.

[Steven Grant]

Unless you wanted to keep selling copies of the book, and a lot of people are going to be put off by the film version.
Same with From Hell.
V For Vendetta (to stick with films based on Moore's works)

Except that sales on the trade paperbacks of those things all went up, way up, in the wake of the movies, especially V FOR VENDETTA. Meaning, theoretically, a much larger audience that never would have looked at the work otherwise was inspired to go buy a copy, whether they did it before or after seeing the film. So, theoretically, they would have read the work they bought and been able to compare it to the movies, and seen that the originals were visibly better. So, theoretically, that would have inspired them to buy other work by the creators, and the books would easily wipe out any negatives generated by the movies.

V FOR VENDETTA was relatively close to the source material, and it did pretty well, and was pretty well received by the audience. And I seriously doubt anyone already buying LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN would have stopped buying it just because the movie was laughable crap. More people might not have started buying it, though the trade(s?) did well on the movies' coattails. I doubt DAREDEVIL lost any readers over that crappy movie. The movie is the movie and the comic is the comic, and since there seem to be a very sizable number of film critics now who are also comics fans, when you get a film that reams the hell out of the source material, the reviews usually say now that the comics are so much better...

I could see having people pick it up as it was quite popular (though I'm not sure why - and not in a 'they changed the comic' kinda way, I just thought it was a really poorly put together film, with no stand out qualities whatsoever... probably why it succeeded then.)

Well, if it succeeded, how does that hurt the popularity of the original? And since Alan had nothing to do with the movie, how does that hurt Alan?

Except for Salinger.

J.D. Salinger? What the hell does he have to do with anything? Besides it being a good day for bananafish?

Yeah okay, whatever. You'd jump at the oppurtunity to have your work turned into a bad film, cause it'd make you a quick buck, cool.

I doubt anyone goes into it expecting a bad film to be made. Even filmmakers you think are utterly crap think they're going to produce a good film. They just turn out to be wrong, usually. And it's not so much a "quick buck," it's a little extra cashflow so that maybe you can work on something you really want to for little money instead of having to churn out another issue of DR. FATE, and it's advertising. Even a bad film promotes the source material, esp. in these days of media frenzy. In a time when most comics sell like crap, those kinds of things can make a world of difference in someone's life.

But... I repeat again...

WHATEVER HAPPENS WITH A MOVIE ADAPTATION IT DOES NOT AFFECT THE ORIGINAL WORK! CATCH-22, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-5 and SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION were all awful films, and the novels are still great. And, as a writer, when I finish writing a story, my job is done. Past the point where I've finished telling my story, as long as that story remains intact, what happens after that doesn't concern me all that much. Because there's always the next story to go onto. If someone's inspired enough by the work to want to do their own work based on it, and they're willing to pay me for the privilege, great. Do I expect it to be as good as what I wrote? How could it be?

I find it odd that you wouldn't want to wait and see if someone who could make a good film would come along and do something with it, but fair enough.
It's just if Don Murphy options your film to produce, you know already it won't be good... the one bright star on his resume is Natural Born Killers, and that was over a decade ago.

You're presuming people pay a lot more attention to director and producer resumes. I don't recall who signed off on the LoXG option, but if DC corporate controlled the option (was Wildstorm with them by then?) they're concerned mainly with getting a movie, any movie, made, and when they see a name like Don Murphy, they don't really take quality into consider, they only take into consideration his current studio connections and how many films he has managed to get made. And from their perspective, of course it will be a good movie, because it will be a big budget film with a lot of promotion and it will get made and sold. It's the same basic philosophy Marvel has followed in their film dealings.

The general public aren't going to be any more interested in your work, some might even be put off, and the royalty cheques will die out quick, as the film isn't going to have a strong resale value (good films continue to sell on DVD, regardless of box office takings). And quite frankly, you'll have contributed to one more crappy film being out there.

As sins go, being the source for a crappy film is pretty minor. And films being crap don't necessarily have any influence on their long term marketability. But, like I said, above, bad films based on Alan's work still promoted Alan's work to new audiences.

What you're forgetting is that a film, good or bad, based on my work, isn't my work, unless I'm directly involved. It's somebody else's work.

If it's all about the money though, why are you bothering with comics? I'd assume that in such a fringe industry, with a small audience, that money is a secondary concern.

Obviously, it isn't all about the money, but there's something to be said for not starving in a garret too. Love is like butter: it's better with bread.

Going for the quickest/biggest bucks you can, regardless.

If you're going for the quickest/biggest bucks you can, comics isn't the way to do it.

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

Sure, there's the chance it will never get made, but you know which studios/producers are most likely make a good film and which are likely to make a bad one.

Oh, if only that were true.

New Line produced both LORD OF THE RINGS and SNAKES ON A PLANE. Care to roll the dice? Every studio has released dogs, every one has released good films. And the way films are made these days, it's very rare to know what studio will even be involved until well down the process. I just don't think you understand how films get made, and, frankly, it's a miracle even bad ones get made...

- Grant

[NatGertler]

Yeah, League collections sold strongly in the anticipation of the film, and continued selling well in the wake of its release -- despite the film's relatively weak performance in the domestic market (grossing less than its production costs). Part of the ongoing sales may have been driven by a surprisingly large number of reviews of the movie which contrasted its quality with the quality of the comics material. (I was going to say "the source material", but then realized that in this particular case, the comics were an intermediate form.)