Comic book movie adaptations

[O'Dib]

So I heard somewhere that, with the medium's limited readership and lack of profitability, comics have become little more than a way for writers to sell original IPs to movie studios. That's fine by me, I love comics and comic-book movies. What's weird is when the authors are so blatant about it. I just read Wanted, and it's obvious, by the way they're drawn and how they dress, that the artist meant for the leads to be played by Eminem and Halle Berry. This seems to be a Millar thing. Sam Jackson had that cameo as Nick Fury because of how Fury was depicted in the Ultimates.. Does this seem a little shameless to you guys?

 

[Hermiod]

^Don't mix up the Nick Fury thing here.

Millar and Hitch have been quite frank about this. When they were handed the job of creating an Ultimate universe version of the Avengers they both agreed to make the comic book version of what an Avengers movie would look like.

They asked Jackson for permission to base Fury's likeness upon him and he accepted.

 

[zakkrusz]

No. It's fine as long as the movies are entertaining.

 

[Mr. Sin]

This happens in Star Wars comics too. Sure, you might say, Star Wars is based on a movie series, so of course they use the actor's likenesses. But even the SW characters created for the comics are sometimes obviously based on actors. Jan Duuresama for instance has clearly modeled Jariah Syn from the Legacy comics on CSI and ALIEN RESSURECTION actor Gary Dourdan.

 

[23skidoo]

I don't see why anyone thinks this is a new thing. Captain Marvel (the original Shazam! version) was modelled after Fred McMurray, and I believe the original Wonder Woman was based upon a popular actress of the day. And the recent Superman Secret Origin mini-series not only featured Christopher Reeve as Superman once again, but the artist "cast" Winona Ryder as Lois Lane.

I won't deny the point that comics are often created with films in mind (after all, that's where the money is and that's always been the case). But I don't think we should mix up artists paying tribute to favorite actors, or even conducting a bit of "dream casting" with there being any ulterior motive.

All that said, I'd love to see Alex Ross do a project using the likenesses of well-known actors rather than the anonymous models he generally uses (that said he did manage to nail the Fred McMurray Captain Marvel).

Alex