Who else thinks a New Gods live action movie would be awesome?

[Munkiman]

With the tagline, of course: "AN EPIC FOR OUR TIMES."

It could be the next great comic book blockbuster.

[Fatguy]

I love the New Gods. The Kirby Omnibuses are some of my most prized trades, and Orion is one of my favorite characters.

That being said, I cant imagine these characters working anywhere outside of comics. That's one of the reasons I love them. They're so.....comic book-y.

[Free-Man]

I love the New Gods. The Kirby Omnibuses are some of my most prized trades, and Orion is one of my favorite characters.

That being said, I cant imagine these characters working anywhere outside of comics. That's one of the reasons I love them. They're so.....comic book-y.

Pretty much Quoted For Truth.

[Munkiman]

But what about the DCAU? I was first introduced to Darkseid through Superman: The Animated Series, and I thought he was one of the best villains ever. He was awesome in S:TAS, especially "Apokolips Now!" and "Legacy", and JLU's "Destroyer", and so were Orion and other New Gods characters. So I think a live action movie would work in the same way.

[Sean Walsh]

I would like to love a New Gods movie.

But I fear it would suck because someone would take the designs and say "Pfah! How silly! Let's make these aliens look better." :frown:

[Free-Man]

But what about the DCAU? I was first introduced to Darkseid through Superman: The Animated Series, and I thought he was one of the best villains ever. He was awesome in S:TAS, especially "Apokolips Now!" and "Legacy", and JLU's "Destroyer", and so were Orion and other New Gods characters. So I think a live action movie would work in the same way.

Live action and animation are two completely different ball-games.

[Global Honored]

Agreed. Animated= good, live action = trainwreck

[Mr. Holmes]

It has potential to either destroy Jack Kirby's legacy or become one of the greatest films of all times. I here a lot of people saying it can't be done live, but really if you were to mix Star Wars with Lord of the Rings, you could basically have the basis for making a New Gods live movie. Get Grant Morrison on the script, Peter Jackson directing, and get a beast casting and it could be good. But it has to be perfect, otherwise shouldn't be attempted.

[Aaron King]

Until then, you can watch the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie.

"The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is Masters of the Universe." -John Byrne

Comparison to Jack Kirby on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Universe_%28film%29#Comparison_with _Jack_Kirby.27s_Fourth_World)

[Desaad]

I think the impression of the movie going public would be that it was something of a rip off of Star Wars. Source/Force, Darkseid/Darth Vader, Orion-Darkseid/Luke-Darth, fantasy mixed with sci-fi, etc.

Obviously they'd be wrong, but the set ups are pretty similar.

[berk]

They'd probably just make it into another crappy JLA/Superman/Batman story with the NG as watered down supporting characters.

[Jmacq1]

They'd be defeated by the greatest enemy of all superhero comic-to-movie adaptations: The budget.

But they're also obscure enough that most people probably wouldn't even realize they're taking place in the same universe as Superman, etc... unless you had a cameo.

That and the whole "New Gods" title would probably cause religious groups to protest against it or something. I remember some friends of mine who couldn't watch He-Man or own any of the toys because of the "Masters of the Universe" title. The parents felt it was sacreligious.

[Aubergine~!]

I would like to love a New Gods movie.

But I fear it would suck because someone would take the designs and say "Pfah! How silly! Let's make these aliens look better." :frown:

"Get the black leather."

[Ziggy Stardust]

With the tagline, of course: "AN EPIC FOR OUR TIMES."

It could be the next great comic book blockbuster.

What beefy actor can they convince to wear a skirt and some stripper boots so as to be Darkseid?

[Surtur]

Even if they had an infinite amount of money to spend on this film, I think they'd still wind up messing it up.

[Sean Walsh]

"Get the black leather."

And yet I'm sure Lashina - the only New Gods character who wears black leather (mainly because of her whipping straps) - would be downplayed or completely missing from the movie.

[Gabe99]

Until then, you can watch the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie.

"The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is Masters of the Universe." -John Byrne

Comparison to Jack Kirby on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Universe_%28film%29#Comparison_with _Jack_Kirby.27s_Fourth_World)


Here is what Grant Morrison had to say about the New Gods / Master of the Universe connection.
From Newsarama:
Grant Morrison: Final Crisis Exit Interview, Part 1 (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/010928-Grant-Final-Crisis.html)

GM: Yes. This wasn’t my idea – I asked for generic space shuttles in the script - but it does seem appropriate, given how much of Star Wars echoes ‘New Gods’ (although Star Wars just can’t come close to Kirby’s transcendental vision. The Force doesn’t even have a Wall! Real fans out there will of course be familiar with the He-Man film, Masters of the Universe, which is the closest any movie has so far come to copying New Gods outright. They even have the Boom Tube, while Skeletor is played as Darkseid and He-man is very obviously Orion).


And this is what MotU director Gary Goddard had to say about Kirby.

From Comic Book Resources November 2, 2006: Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #75 (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/11/02/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-75/)

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Masters of the Universe was a reworked Fourth World movie.

STATUS: False

A significant number of fans of the film Masters of the Universe suggest that the film is really a reworked Fourth World film.

The film features characters that seem like they have analogues from Jack Kirby’s classic Fourth World series of comics: Orion (He-Man), Kalibak (Beast Man), Kanto (Blade), and Darkseid (Skeletor).

The way that they travel in the film from Eternia to Earth is essentially a Boom Tube, and there’s a lot of other similar touches.

However, the film itself was not intended to be literally a reworked Fourth World, although the intent WAS to make the film a tribute to Jack Kirby - just a tribute to ALL of his work, not just the Fourth World.

Writer/artist John Byrne was quoted in Comic Shop News #497 as saying, “The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is ´Masters of the Universe´. I even corresponded with the director, who told me this was his intent, and that he had tried to get Kirby to do the production designs, but the studio nixed it.” This is probably where most of the confusion comes from, for while Byrne is basically correct, his statement that the intent of the film was to be a New Gods movie does not match what the director, Gary Goddard, wrote to Byrne in the letter column of Next Men #26, in response to a comment Byrne had made in an earlier column about the similarities between the film and the Fourth World comics.

In that column, Goddard wrote:

As the director of Masters of the Universe, it was a pleasure to see that someone got it. Your comparison of the film to Kirby’s New Gods was not far off. In fact, the storyline was greatly inspired by the classic Fantastic Four/Doctor Doom epics, The New Gods and a bit of Thor thrown in here and there. I intended the film to be a “motion picture comic book,” though it was a tough proposition to sell to the studio at the time. “Comics are just for kids,” they thought. They would not allow me to hire Jack Kirby who I desperately wanted to be the conceptual artist for the picture…

I grew up with Kirby’s comics (I’ve still got all my Marvels from the first issue of Fantastic Four and Spider-Man through the time Kirby left) and I had great pleasure meeting him when he first moved to California. Since that time I enjoyed the friendship of Jack and Roz and was lucky enough to spend many hours with Jack, hearing how he created this character and that one, why a villain has to be even more powerful than a hero, and on and on. Jack was a great communicator, and listening to him was always an education. You might be interested to know that I tried to dedicate Masters of Universe to Jack Kirby in the closing credits, but the studio took the credit out.

Still, whether the film was literally a Fourth World remake or not, the devotion to the work of Jack Kirby remains, and it is quite interesting on Goddard’s part.

Thanks to Bright Raven for finding me the right issue of Next Men and Ryan Day for sending me a copy of the letter. Thanks to yo go re for suggesting this one (it was on the to-do list anyways, but I figure, might as well mention it).


I would love to see a New Gods movie. Maybe the "new" DC studio along with Legendary Pictures can get it done. They have a good track record so far. The movie would need a director like Steven Spielberg or James Cameron. A studio would be less likely to interfere with a director with that kind of respect. It might work better as a MoCap movie or CG animation. Although I'd like to see it done with real actors.

Am I the only person that thought Hancock was very similar to the recent Eternals story from Gaiman and JRJR?

[Gabe99]

Until then, you can watch the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie.

"The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is Masters of the Universe." -John Byrne

Comparison to Jack Kirby on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Universe_%28film%29#Comparison_with _Jack_Kirby.27s_Fourth_World)


Here is what Grant Morrison had to say about the New Gods / Master of the Universe connection.
From Newsarama:
Grant Morrison: Final Crisis Exit Interview, Part 1 (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/010928-Grant-Final-Crisis.html)

GM: Yes. This wasn’t my idea – I asked for generic space shuttles in the script - but it does seem appropriate, given how much of Star Wars echoes ‘New Gods’ (although Star Wars just can’t come close to Kirby’s transcendental vision. The Force doesn’t even have a Wall! Real fans out there will of course be familiar with the He-Man film, Masters of the Universe, which is the closest any movie has so far come to copying New Gods outright. They even have the Boom Tube, while Skeletor is played as Darkseid and He-man is very obviously Orion).


And this is what MotU director Gary Goddard had to say about Kirby.

From Comic Book Resources November 2, 2006: Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #75 (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/11/02/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-75/)

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Masters of the Universe was a reworked Fourth World movie.

STATUS: False

A significant number of fans of the film Masters of the Universe suggest that the film is really a reworked Fourth World film.

The film features characters that seem like they have analogues from Jack Kirby’s classic Fourth World series of comics: Orion (He-Man), Kalibak (Beast Man), Kanto (Blade), and Darkseid (Skeletor).

The way that they travel in the film from Eternia to Earth is essentially a Boom Tube, and there’s a lot of other similar touches.

However, the film itself was not intended to be literally a reworked Fourth World, although the intent WAS to make the film a tribute to Jack Kirby - just a tribute to ALL of his work, not just the Fourth World.

Writer/artist John Byrne was quoted in Comic Shop News #497 as saying, “The best New Gods movie, IMHO, is ´Masters of the Universe´. I even corresponded with the director, who told me this was his intent, and that he had tried to get Kirby to do the production designs, but the studio nixed it.” This is probably where most of the confusion comes from, for while Byrne is basically correct, his statement that the intent of the film was to be a New Gods movie does not match what the director, Gary Goddard, wrote to Byrne in the letter column of Next Men #26, in response to a comment Byrne had made in an earlier column about the similarities between the film and the Fourth World comics.

In that column, Goddard wrote:

As the director of Masters of the Universe, it was a pleasure to see that someone got it. Your comparison of the film to Kirby’s New Gods was not far off. In fact, the storyline was greatly inspired by the classic Fantastic Four/Doctor Doom epics, The New Gods and a bit of Thor thrown in here and there. I intended the film to be a “motion picture comic book,” though it was a tough proposition to sell to the studio at the time. “Comics are just for kids,” they thought. They would not allow me to hire Jack Kirby who I desperately wanted to be the conceptual artist for the picture…

I grew up with Kirby’s comics (I’ve still got all my Marvels from the first issue of Fantastic Four and Spider-Man through the time Kirby left) and I had great pleasure meeting him when he first moved to California. Since that time I enjoyed the friendship of Jack and Roz and was lucky enough to spend many hours with Jack, hearing how he created this character and that one, why a villain has to be even more powerful than a hero, and on and on. Jack was a great communicator, and listening to him was always an education. You might be interested to know that I tried to dedicate Masters of Universe to Jack Kirby in the closing credits, but the studio took the credit out.

Still, whether the film was literally a Fourth World remake or not, the devotion to the work of Jack Kirby remains, and it is quite interesting on Goddard’s part.

Thanks to Bright Raven for finding me the right issue of Next Men and Ryan Day for sending me a copy of the letter. Thanks to yo go re for suggesting this one (it was on the to-do list anyways, but I figure, might as well mention it).


I would love to see a New Gods movie. Maybe the "new" DC studio along with Legendary Pictures can get it done. They have a good track record so far. The movie would need a director like Steven Spielberg or James Cameron. A studio would be less likely to interfere with a director with that kind of respect. It might work better as a MoCap movie or CG animation. Although I'd like to see it done with real actors.

Am I the only person that thought Hancock was very similar to the recent Eternals story from Gaiman and JRJR?