It’s no secret that the lines between the various forms of popular media have been getting progressively blurred over the last couple of years. All games get made into movies… all comics seem to get made into movies… hell, it seems like all TV shows get made into movies too. The various mediums are getting so blurred now, that you have comic books being created specifically for the purpose of turning it into a movie. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) is creating a comic book called “Nowhere Man” just for that purpose.
The folks over at Variety give us this:
Hugh Jackman and “Eli Stone” co-creator Marc Guggenheim are teaming with Virgin Comics to create “Nowhere Man,” an original comicbook series that is designed to be transferred to the bigscreen as a Jackman vehicle. Story was being kept under wraps, but Jackson’s Seed Productions partner John Palermo said it features a protagonist reminiscent of the one Will Smith played in “I Am Legend.” The concept is a futuristic world where mankind has traded privacy for safety, a premise that sprouted with Seed, Virgin CEO Sharad Devarajan and chief creative officer Gotham Chopra. “This is our first comic, and we feel the concept is transferable to other arenas, perhaps first as a videogame, and then a movie,” Palermo said.
I have mixed feelings about the whole notion of this. On the one hand it seems like this is a step to remove any purity of a medium. Each medium (game, comic book, movie) has its own strengths, and to produce something in one medium with a pre-existing intention for using it in another seems to compromise the things that could make it work in its native medium. In other words, i fear they’ll neuter some of the things that could make it s great comic book, for the sake of making sure it’s something that could make a good movie.
On the other hand, a step like this seems inevitable. If the final intention of the “story” is to make it into a movie, then it seems logical to develop it with the movie in mind in the first place.
So what do you think? Would you rather read comic book that were created to be comic books – or would you rather read comic books that are designed to be movies?
Well i think it is pretty clever because think about it if they go well (and they will, because some people will read it cause hugh jackman was involved) they are extending there money by making a movie then if that goes well they could make the next Harry Potter series!! LOL !!
There’s a script for a film called Nowhere Man at http://www.nowhereman.com based on The Beatles and John Lennon.
Studios and people with money always rip off ideas and titles from those creatives who can’t afford copyright licencing fees and trademarks.
Just look at Destiny Pictures “2012 – The Dark Rift” – and Centropolis ripping it off with their film called 2012.
Basically hollywierd needs demolishing, hopefully in 2012 it will all fall in the ocean, and we can be rid of it once and for all.
I think this is a bad business model for one simple reason…
Has anyone noticed the extremely consistent suckyness of movies that are made from videogames and TV shows? I struggle to think of even one. The closest (that comes to mind) was the Resident Evil movies, but those were only good because of the complete awfulness of the other videogame-to-movie adaptations.
I don’t think it will be this way forever, just x amount of years ago, i held the same opinion on comic-book based movies. Then comes along Batman Begins and it blew me away. Not only was it good, but it was compelling, something I’d yet to experience in a comic based movie.
It seems that set the bar because after Batman begins we have had a number of great comic-book based movies come out that kick ass (not to mention some that sucked ass too – lookin at you Hulk)
Many many *cough*many years ago in DC’s Animal Man comic book series there was a character called “Nowhere Man”, to this day he is still one of my favourite comic book characters… of course to anyone else, an extremely obscure character. Anyway, I wish my Nowhere Man had his own comic series and movie, it would be twisty! He had a very strange ability, his molecules were not attached, so his hand would be waaay over there, and his nose over there.
Do I even have to bring up the Bruce Greenwood tv show called “Nowhere Man”.
Anyway I welcome any film that takes on the issue of security based on fear. This is an issue that people need to face.
Yeah, I think the Beatles named their song after that show.
This was an excellent series already with Bruce Greenwood – a spiritual cousin to The Prisoner.
Storytelling is storytelling, no matter the medium.
BUT
As long as the medium is aware of the sort of medium that is, then it has the potential to work. A comic book that will be a video game and/or a movie could be great as long as the comic book isn’t trying to BE the movie/videogame or (gasp) a STORYBOARD to the movie/videogame.
Well thats interesting. There’s already a vidcast series called Nowhere Men that seems to have somewhat of the same theme.
http://www.nowheremen.net
The more I think about the more it seems like the same thing