CBR: George RR Martin's Superhero "Wild Cards" Headed To Film

[CBR News]

The prose anthology turned comic book from the writer of "Game of Thrones" is headed to film as the first project from SyFy Films as George RR Martin's "Wild Cards" gets a Hollywood call.


Full article here.

[supamike]

freaking sweet!!! Sleeper speeding,ppl bleeding!!

[mrhelm]

Spectacular news! Hopefully this can actually get made (and at a budget higher than SciFi's current productions).

[Bathawk1]

Yes! Yes A Thousand Times yes!

before Marvel Max, before Dc's Vertigo, before Epic, before Warren Ellis or Alan moore I first read wild Cards and knew what mature, grown up super hero fiction was like. if they can pull this off....

if.....

Of course as far as a good book adaptations go, we'll probably expect soemthing like Game of Thrones...and get "Dresden Files' instead

[Black Manta]

About time. I hope they keep the timeline the same as what was in the books. I don't think Jetboy works in any other war besides WWII.

[Scavenger]

Some thoughts...

*SyFy? Sigh....fi.indeed.

*It's really more a series than a film...but real world superheroes don't do TV well...

*Be interesting which characters they have access to...IIRC, the different characters belong to the individual writers, so that can be a lot of contracts...Martin had the Sleeper, and Snodgrass Tachyon, but like I think Great and Powerful Turtle was someone else (Modular Man was Zelazny...i think...)

*As this is a comic site, might be worth mentioning Chris Claremont was also a Wild Cards writer.

*Similarly, Wild Cards first hit comics by way of Marvel's Epic line.

[Fazhoul]

I was jazzed until I saw that it was being produced by SyFy. I know that it's their "theatrical division" but with their track record things don't look good. And honestly I think the books would have been better suited as a show on HBO due to the adult subject matter of some of the stories.

[Howard Allan]

I love these books. If the film turns out 1/2 as great as the books it'll be a killer film. Go Takion.

[Island Summer]

*As this is a comic site, might be worth mentioning Chris Claremont was also a Wild Cards writer.

One of the few additions to the books I did NOT care for. His cliches were tired even back then, and every time I reread the series I get pulled out of the fantasy because his expressions and themes are so overused.

But if it puts viewers in the chairs, then so be it.

I still can't stand how he basically steamrolled the 'Heroes Reborn' Fantastic Four into a thinly veiled rehash of his X-Men runs with future versions of characters (Valeria Von Doom - UGH), his 'it was a great idea way back when' strongly-written females (who now all wind up sounding alike), and shoehorning in his lame 'babies' (Lockdown & Rosetta Stone, et al) where they didn't belong.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved his writing when I was a teen in the 80's but his style is SO tired now I cringe every time he takes over a book. He made "Exiles" unreadable when he swapped out all the long-running characters for his precious Kitty Pryde, Psylocke and Sage.

I AM psyched that "Wild Cards" will finally get a live-action incarnation!

[Kalen O.]

Actually the Sleeper was Zelazny's creation, the Turtle was Martin's. Modular Man I wanna say is Victor Milan's, but I think I'm wrong there. The first two I'm sure about though.

But I'm fairly certain they can draw from any of the Wildcards characters, regardless of who initially created them. They all use each other's creations in their individual stories all the time, and for instance, the Sleeper's been used in multiple stories since Zelazny's death, and Walter Jon Williams only ever wrote one Wildcards story in the first volume, in which he introduced Golden Boy and the Four Aces and yet his characters have been used or referenced in every single volume since then.

What I'm more interested in finding out is when this movie is going to be set? One of the great strengths of the WC universe is its rich alternate history, and many of its most memorable stories are rooted in specific time periods. Are they going to do an initial film in one of those earlier time periods or just start out modern day?

[Scavenger]

Actually the Sleeper was Zelazny's creation, the Turtle was Martin's. Modular Man I wanna say is Victor Milan's, but I think I'm wrong there. The first two I'm sure about though.

But I'm fairly certain they can draw from any of the Wildcards characters, regardless of who initially created them.

I trust your memory way more than mine.

The cross-use in books is one thing...that's the nature of the shared universe style of novel. When it leaves book form and goes into TV or movies..that's a whole other copyright issue. Be intersting to see, anyhow.

[blackphoenix]

Huh. I've never heard of this. Maybe I'll track down the comics. Hopefully, the movie won't be as excreable as SY-Fy's other movies.

[Expletive Deleted]

If it's a movie, it'll probably have to be PG-13. That'll mean dropping some fairly significant characters and storylines.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. There was a period where it felt like all of the writers were trying to out-skeeve each other. Poor Dr. Tachyon.

Huh. I've never heard of this. Maybe I'll track down the comics.

The comics are mostly just adaptations of the novels.

[Fazhoul]

Huh. I've never heard of this. Maybe I'll track down the comics. Hopefully, the movie won't be as excreable as SY-Fy's other movies.

Track down the novels instead. They are far superior to the comics. And there are things that the novels cover that aren't in the comics. The first view have been reprinted a couple of times bit you should be able to find the rest at used book stores or at online booksellers.

[Kalen O.]

I dunno, I could see them making an R-rated film. I mean, Watchmen was R-rated, and the success of Martin's GoT's show probably has a LOT to do with this option getting picked up, and that's certainly not PG-13 in content...that said, the more recent Wildcards books have been a lot tamer in content than the older ones. I just think it'd be hard to do the Sleeper well if you're toning him down for a PG-13 rating, and it sounds like he's the gateway character in Snodgrass's screenplay. And if it is PG-13, I definitely don't see Fortunato playing much of a role, lol.

Anyone got a wish-list of characters they'd like to see in this? There's been so many its hard to narrow it down. I think Lazy Dragon and Water Lily could have awesome visuals on screen. Be fun to see Chrysalis play a role too.