Too bad. Morrison’s Final Crisis is a metafictional, metaphysical apocalypse that takes Superman, Batman and other superheroes you already know — and many more that you don’t — across the reaches of time and space, fiction and reality. It’s ambition defined, which makes it a Hollywood pipe dream, for now.

Instead, we’re left with Morrison’s much safer All-Star Superman, slated to become the first animated feature based on his prolific work. The recently released debut trailer (below) bore little resemblance to the poignant interstellar psychedelia of Morrison’s award-winning comic, probably because it was written by Dwayne MacDuffie (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths) instead of Morrison.

“I wasn’t upset, because I saw the movie and it’s one of my top three superhero movies ever,” said Morrison. “Only the superfans are going to complain, because the film has about 90 percent of my stuff in it. Much of it is actual dialogue taken from the book.”

That said, Morrison was never invited to apply his significant writing talent to All-Star Superman’s big-screen leap. “I wasn’t asked,” he said.

Morgan Freeman joins an all-star cast in Warren Ellis' first feature film adaptation, Red, out Friday.
Image courtesy Summit Entertainment

Going Red, Seeing Green

The equally demanding and rewarding Warren Ellis is similarly poised to make Hollywood waves at arm’s length. Ellis’ grim spy-fi shooter Red arrives onscreen Friday, packed with a star-studded cast — Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman to start — that reads like an Oscar rap sheet. But the Red film adaptation was written by two scribes — Jon and Erich Hoeber — who have crime films like Montana and Whiteout under their belts, and not much else.

Right now, getting lost in translation is not a problem.

“The film is very different” from his comic book, Ellis admitted on his always entertaining official site. “Not least because it needed to generate more material than the book itself actually constituted…. There are essentially only four characters.”

Things could get complicated if Hollywood decides to tackle Ellis’ more worthy comics, like the taboo-shattering Transmetropolitan, which drags the scathing gonzo journalist composite Spider Jerusalem through a dystopian future overloaded on synthetic pleasures, political sellouts, rampant propaganda and civilization in decline.

Years ago, Star Trek Shakespearean Patrick Stewart was reportedly interested in taking Transmetropolitan through the lens. But there are some challenges that even Jean-Luc Picard can’t conquer.

“It’ll never happen,” Ellis said in 2008. And it hasn’t. Which, as with Morrison’s apocalyptic Final Crisis or subversive psychedelic masterpiece The Invisibles, is also too bad. Because both Ellis and Morrison have troves of previous material that is worthy of ambitious Hollywood adaptation, weirdness and all.

Pages: 1 2 View All

Authors: Scott Thill

to know more click here