Wanted

[andy khouri]

CBR News talked to Common about his role in the upcoming “Wanted.” The actor also spoke about his role in “Terminator: Salvation” and addressed those “Justice League” rumors.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=16867

[Tanjint]

I don't see why all the hate for Millar's embrace of Hollywood. You'd be flattered and ecstatic too.

Shit, if Moore was a little more enthusiastic about his work being translated into film than maybe he could have been involved a bit more with one or two of such films and helped make them better.

Also, it makes perfect sense that the Ultimates, being a modernized revamp of classic MU characters, would be looked at by those creating modern films about said characters.

and as far as Millar's 'audience'....I'm a reader of his work and I like it because it's fun action packed but still intelligent and it still communicates some cool ideas.

I don't mistake it for Alan Moore or even Grant Morrison but it doesn't promise to be anything more than it is. He writes summer blockbusters with more intelligence than most summer blockbuster films. It's not the most intelligent comics has to offer but it's at least as intelligent as the best TV. Yes; including arrested development.

I don't care or not that his work says 'fuck', but one thing you can say about damn near all the authors that that guy listed a few posts ago is that they take mature readers themes and devices and often apply them to superheroes...and that's really entertaining if not the deepest most noble artistically groundbreaking aesthetic out there.


that's why I like ellis, ennis, morrison, millar etc. I like their creator owned work too for the most part, the same way you appreciate a good HBO show (except for Invisibles which is better than everything ever, but that's a different tangent) but what's real cool about those guys catalogues is them taking that HBO mentality and style and appying it to my faves like Batman and Wolverine etc.


-T

[Agent Helix]

I don't care or not that his work says 'fuck', but one thing you can say about damn near all the authors that that guy listed a few posts ago is that they take mature readers themes and devices and often apply them to superheroes...and that's really entertaining if not the deepest most noble artistically groundbreaking aesthetic out there.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaat?

[Tanjint]

I'm saying I understand that Wanted isn't Les Miserables or something but it's still pretty cool to apply the mature readers aesthetic to Marvel/DC characters.

-T

[Agent Helix]

All right. You mean "even if it's not".

[jesse_custer]

Gentlemen we will get through this.

So my friend let me borrow the graphic novel and I noticed two of the characters were called Fuckwit and Shithead. Is the movie going to feature those?

[Agent Helix]

I don't think so but wasn't shithead so funny because he was made of shit lololololololololol

[jesse_custer]

Well, I have not read any of it. Was Millar using that character just as juvenile comedy or as a way to sarcastically comment on other characters?

[soylantgreen]

Really, depending on what you want to take out of Wanted in a thematic sense, the changes they've made might actually make the story work better. I mean, if they're playing with the notion of casting off convention for the sake of safety and ease and learning to think for yourself from the book, it might have a little bit more currency for a mainstream audience coming from a character who doesn't regularly rape and murder on a whim.

This is sort of what Millar has been saying for a while - that they really stuck to the core ideas of the story, even when they weren't keeping things like supervillains running the world. Granted, there's plenty of comic book fans who'd like to see a perfectly literal translation - but unfortunately, those fans make up such a small percentage of the moviegoing audience that there's no way a studio can afford to risk pissing off the vast majority of other moviegoers just to please that one small group. And yeah, I'm willing to bet that a character who regularly rapes women for fun is probably going to risk offending a lot of that crowd... or at least 50% of it.

Even if it doesn't follow the GN as much as I'd like, I'm digging on the whole "Fight Club"-ish "throw off the shackles of society" vibe coming from the trailers; that's very much in tune with the original comic, and it should make for a damn fine movie as well.

[kalorama]

I'm saying I understand that Wanted isn't Les Miserables or something but it's still pretty cool to apply the mature readers aesthetic to Marvel/DC characters.

But that's the point/problem. There's nothing in the core of the story that is in any way more "mature" than what can be found in modern day Marvel/DC comics, beyond the swearing and the sex.

[The Batman]

Well, I have not read any of it. Was Millar using that character just as juvenile comedy or as a way to sarcastically comment on other characters?

Potty humour stand-ins for Clayface and Bizarro.

[Mr.West]

Gentlemen we will get through this.

So my friend let me borrow the graphic novel and I noticed two of the characters were called Fuckwit and Shithead. Is the movie going to feature those?

The only characters in the movie from the book are Wes, his dad and Kat...as far as main characters...dont expect the movie to be anything like the book

[Mr.West]

This is sort of what Millar has been saying for a while - that they really stuck to the core ideas of the story, even when they weren't keeping things like supervillains running the world. Granted, there's plenty of comic book fans who'd like to see a perfectly literal translation - but unfortunately, those fans make up such a small percentage of the moviegoing audience that there's no way a studio can afford to risk pissing off the vast majority of other moviegoers just to please that one small group. And yeah, I'm willing to bet that a character who regularly rapes women for fun is probably going to risk offending a lot of that crowd... or at least 50% of it.

Even if it doesn't follow the GN as much as I'd like, I'm digging on the whole "Fight Club"-ish "throw off the shackles of society" vibe coming from the trailers; that's very much in tune with the original comic, and it should make for a damn fine movie as well.

As far as is goes your right about them adapting it for the general movie going audience...it is all about the $$$. And when u see it your gonna be disappointed if your expecting "Fight Club" standards. its like Fight club and the Matrix had a love child and angelina jolie adopted it.

BTW: I too hate society and the General movie going populace

[Tanjint]

All right. You mean "even if it's not".

like even if wanted is not les miserables?

-T

[Tanjint]

Granted, there's plenty of comic book fans who'd like to see a perfectly literal translation - but unfortunately, those fans make up such a small percentage of the moviegoing audience that there's no way a studio can afford to risk pissing off the vast majority of other moviegoers just to please that one small group. And yeah, I'm willing to bet that a character who regularly rapes women for fun is probably going to risk offending a lot of that crowd... or at least 50% of it.

.

Two things

1) If a literal translation wouldn't make a good film...I'd understand. For example, if the makers of the movie Iron Man just wanted to turn the first 8 issues of Stan lee's 60's Iron Man into film, it would not turn out great as it did being an adaptation. cause the comics were written with serial comics in mind, not movies.
Wanted the OGN, was written completely like a movie and would still be effective in movie form. Even if Eminem and Halle Berry aren't the best actors in this kind of context(or at all) Millar had that in mind and the story had ridiculous over-the-top almost tongue in cheek-ness about it. Like how Fox and Wes say "bitch!" after everything they say. People say Millar panders to the masses, but he is often satirizing such appeal while playing to it...that's why he's good. but I'm getting sidetracked, point is, Wanted as is in the OGN would have made a great film.
Remember the part where they're in one of the universes that still has heroes and they're on that crazy mission to retrieve that whatever-thing? And they're killing superheroes left and right and it's an action packed full of awe and wonder sequence? The comic is full of moments like that that everyone could be entertained by.

Hollywood filmmakers feel that they NEED to put their twist on any project they work on. They work for themselves first and art second. There will probably never be directors that put the art before their own primadonna ass needs. And that's why stories that are already perfectly movie ready as is(Frank Miller's daredevil anyone? Did they really need to warp it that much? Oh yeah...gotta go for a younger age audience approved rating! Gotta make Elektra a non-threatening anglo deep down to get that PG rating!) will never be faithfully translated unless they were written by JRR Tolkien(hell, Jackson even had to drop tom Bombadil from that story, which is legit).

2) " And yeah, I'm willing to bet that a character who regularly rapes women for fun is probably going to risk offending a lot of that crowd... or at least 50% of it"

This fascinates me utterly. I'm not being sarcastic...let's marinate on this idea for a little while...As comic book fans we are more okay with rape, murder, and the desensitization to it? Is that really so? Comic book fans are more okay with rape, murder, extreme violence etc. in art. Moreso than people who read a lot of novels? Or watch a lot of movies? Or play a lot of video games?

More people in this country watch a lot of movies and play a lot of video games than read comics but we're the minority of people that are okay with extreme violence in art?

What is it about the medium? I thought they were kid books.

On the one hand, you can say (superhero/superhero related) comics are a medium full of violence and we're desensitized.

On the other hand you can say that we are faced with extreme archetypes of good and evil moreso than purveyors of other genres and we accept all that comes with it.

Or on another hand yet, one can argue that we're not any more desensitized than the rest of the country playing video games, watching movies...

anyway, back to bitching: How SICK would it have been to see Master Rictus on screen? Torturing mothafuckaz...

You're telling me the general public wouldn't have loved to see supervillains running the world and wouldn't have also found the concept of a matrix like mental blanket having wiped us of our memory of superheroes in the past and a war that wiped them out? That's friggin' epic!

I mean, there was a point where we weren't comic fans and something had to draw us in right? I think premises like the premise to the comic Wanted are among those things likely to get new people into comics. It's a Watchmen level premise(execution wise wanted is less complete, nuanced, and symmetrical than watchmen so don't FLIP out) and watchmen is definitely one of those comics that converts non believers.

I guess I just hope that 15 years or so from now there's a couple other decent actors that look like Halle Berry and Eminem.

The idea of using Halle Berry and Eminem is brilliant satire, commentary and appeal too.

Halle Berry has been made into a sort of typical archetypal ridiculous sex super character (storm, catwoman) and Eminem symbolizes disenfranchized, demoralized, depraved white america's devolution (check out his song white america from his album "The Eminem Show" in which he discusses how he symbolizes those in power and luxury in the US, white, blond hair, blue eyes and yet symbolizes ideas in direct opposition to the American dream and goodness as stated). It's a perfect compliment to Millar's scathing attack on conformist, monotonous, homogenized life in America.

i'm not against the Wanted movie that's about to come out. it does look good and I'm happy for Millar (as I would be for any comic creator who finds success due to good work, just like I'm happy for Stan Lee every time one of his creations gets lit up on the screen i the twilight years of his life) but what makes me sad is that the creation of this film means it'll be a long time before any one even considers making a film heavily based on Wanted GN. And that saddens me because that comic, admittedly like most Millar, was made to be an action packed, blockbuster style, entertaining from beginnning to end, yet still morally provocative movie.

-T