Deadpool smashed box office records, opening with the highest gross ever for an R-rated movie with $135 million in North America during its first week. The fourth-wall breaking, crude, meme-filled comedy was met with praise as a breath of fresh air for a genre cluttered with many safe bets.
Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who’s no stranger to taking risks in the superhero genre himself, unleashed an expletive-filled, but deeply honest rant saying Hollywood should learn a lesson from Deadpool and not try to replicate its success, but continue to greenlight other original ideas. The assessment is bang-on, as Hollywood can step up and release more original concepts in the genre, instead of trying to reproduce a hit film verbatim.
There are some great comic concepts that can continue to break the mold.
Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga would be a fine adaptation. The current ongoing series made by Image Comics, has become a modern classic as Vaughan has created a vibrant, unique world with stunning artwork from Fiona Staples.
The story’s center is a set of parents, Alana and Marko. Marko has magical abilities and horns, and is a war prisoner. He falls in love with his guard Alana, a winged Lanfallian. The duo, on opposite sides of a galactic war, escape together and eventually have a young girl, a hybrid named Hazel. Chasing them on their trek is a handful of incredible side characters. Prince Robot IV, a man with a TV as a head, and a member of the royal family, is assigned to find out what happened with the pair.
A bounty hunter named The Will also chases them down, with his large cat, Lying Cat, who can tell when someone isn’t being truthful by speaking its one line “Lying.”
I’d imagine an audience would be amazed with all the creativity Vaughan has come up with. There are ghosts, cyclopses, and sex slaves. The story gives off strong Star Wars vibes, something Vaughan openly admits was a huge inspiration, with plenty of planet exploration, aliens, bounty hunters and new and unique worlds to visit. It’s funny, violent, vulgar, sexual, and most impressively, has tons of captivating characters that we’ve never seen before. There’s something for everyone.
The material is brilliant. Translating it to a movie would be difficult given the sheer scope of characters and settings, but it’s not impossible. Vaughan has said he sees Saga purely as an “unfilmable” comic book, but he did say “If Paul Thomas Anderson says, ‘Hey, I want to do a “Saga” movie’ – all right.” – so it’s not outside the realm of possibility. With the right director, a hard-R rating and staying true to the source material, fans would line up to see Saga: The Movie.
Now, a tad more mainstream. If Marvel wants to take things a step further, Moon Knight would be a perfect property to adapt to the big screen.
Moon Knight, aka Marc Spector, like Deadpool, is an anti-hero and former mercenary. He gains powers through an Egyptian moon god that gives him enhanced strength, endurance, and special reflexes during the night, all of which get stronger during a full moon. He gets Batman comparisons for being a vigilante who kicks ass.
What makes Moon Knight such an interesting character is (in different variations) he’s schizophrenic and suffers from multiple personality disorders, and has multiple alter-egos: Moon Knight, Marc Spector, Steven Grant (socialite) and Jake Lockley (street level cab driver) which is both an advantage and disadvantage. Moon Knight can slip into one of his alter egos should he want to gain a certain advantage, but it’s also crippling his mental health.
Aside from some lighter stuff in Iron Man 3, no Marvel property (or comic book film) has really explored mental health. The character would actually lend himself perfectly to the Marvel television universe, but as Marvel showed with Deadpool, they’re not afraid to push boundaries, which is why Moon Night could be suited for a film. A character dealing with some serious internal battles that are guided by realism would be refreshing.
I’m against rehashing ideas just for the sake of it, but Spawn wasn’t given a fair shake when it was made into a movie in 1997.
The film, about a murdered assassin who is resurrected as a demonic creature after giving his soul for a chance to see his wife again, was cheesy, terrible and not representative of the dark, gritty comic from Todd McFarlane. I rewatched the film a couple of years ago with a friend and was shocked by how bad the special effects were, especially the scenes in hell. Like what the hell is this?
The other issue was Spawn should have been rated R, but was PG-13 when it came out. Instead of embracing the darker, more violent tones, the film was handcuffed because it wanted to appeal to a wider audience. It was one of the biggest fails imaginable and is one of the worst – if not the worst – comic book movies ever.
Director Mark A.Z. Dippe has gone on to do some great films like Halloweentown High, Garfield Gets Real and The Reef: 2 High Tide. In the right hands, with a proven director, a Spawn film could do justice by its comic. Robert David Mitchell (It Follows), S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk) or any up-and-coming horror filmmaker who’s shown strong directorial skills would fit the project. McFarlane wants to direct a new Spawn film himself and said he’s completed a script which will be a horror movie. Nothing can be worse than what was made before. Spawn is too good of a comic to not get a fair shake at a good movie adaptation.
There are more, as comics — and comic book characters — become more popular and more three-dimensional on the page, more options available for movie studios to push the envelope and not just repeat the same dozen or so tried-and-true money making stars.
Deadpool‘s success hopefully will give studios the guts to pursue newer characters and original ideas, or at the very least take risks with characters who weren’t given a true chance in previous films to shine in a way the comics intended. No character should be off-limits.
