The Screengrab : torso

Where Have All The Heroes Gone?

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Since we here at the Screengrab are determined to absolutely flood you with news about big-screen superhero comic adaptations until you get so annoyed that you personally come to our offices and spill Diet Coke all over our mint-condition issue of X-Men #137, we feel it's our duty to bring you the bad news as well as the good. No, we're not talking about the bad news that most of these movies are going to kind of suck; that you can take as a given. We're talking about the bad news that as shocking as it may seem, Hollywood may be running out of superheroes.

As reported in Variety, the big studios have already strip-mined almost every first- and second-tier superhero title that Marvel, DC and the independents have to offer (and some third-tier ones as well — we're lookin' at you, Ghost Rider). This fact, combined with less than stellar box office reception for a handful of recent superhero movies (we are, once again, lookin' right at you, Ghost Rider) and the surprising popular and critical reception given to non-mainstream comic book adaptations of non-superhero material, may mean that producers will start increasingly looking for the next Sin City, American Splendor or A History of Violence.

An adaptation of Greg Rucka's unconventional police procedural, Whiteout, is already in the works, and Brian Michael Bendis' deconstruction of the Eliot Ness, Torso, may be David Fincher's next project (Bendis himself is writing the screenplay to a movie version of his spy thriller, Jinx). But there's still a pile of terrific graphic novels — not a one of them featuring men in tights — that could made a terrific movie: Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn and The Cowboy Wally Show are both smart, well-crafted comedies; James Sturm's The Golem's Mighty Swing is both a visually stunning piece of storytelling and a powerful period piece about race and religion; Dan Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron is a natural for a surrealist in the David Lynch mode (even if Clowes has already joked about what a catastrophe a filmed version of the book would be, he proved himself wrong once already with Ghost World); and someday, someone's got to do something with Paul Chadwick's Concrete, which takes what could be a hackneyed sci-fi narrative and turns it into a surprisingly deep and emotional character study. Maybe it's time for Hollywood to look past not only the cape, but the companies behind them, and give indie publishers as much of a chance as they give indie film.

Fincher's Musical, The Canon of Thor, and Justice on the Rocks

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:10:00 GMT

Oh, comic book movie news. Will we ever get enough of you? No, apparently we will not.

In an interview with MTV's Movie News, Zodiac director and Oscar hopeful David Fincher teases us with a few comic-related projects he's tinkering with: he's attached to helm the film adaptation of inexhaustible comic book scribe Brian Michael Bendis' graphic novel Torso, he's kicking around the idea of doing an adaptation of another graphic novel called The Killer, and he's allegedly in talks to produce another animated film based on the artsy/smutty fantasy comics rag Heavy Metal, because we all remember how well it worked out the last time someone did that. The most intriguing bit of info that Fincher drops, though, is that he wants to do a Broadway musical based on Fight Club: "I always saw it as a comedy," he says. "Then everybody would look at me like a leper."

Chicago's Daily Herald, in a talk with South Side native and I am Legend screenwriter Mark Protosevich, reveals the unsurprising news that comic books and junk culture made him the man he is today. Protosevich's next big project, after he gets back from his strike-imposed inadvertent vacation, will be the silver screen debut of Marvel Comics' The Mighty Thor, who he somewhat confusedly describes in Biblical terms: "It's the story of an Old Testament god who becomes a New Testament God", he says. I'm the first to admit that my mind would wander a bit in Sunday School (blame it on comic books), but I'm pretty sure Thor doesn't appear in the version of the Bible they had us reading.

Finally, comic geeks and movie nerds alike were excited some months ago at the announcement that Babe/Mad Max director George Miller would be the man behind the camera for an upcoming big-screen version of the Justice League of America comic. The JLA is a universally beloved superhero team, and the news that a movie based on their exploits would be directed by someone who possesses actual filmmaking talent was welcomed across the board. Unfortunately, as IESB reports, the project is beginning to look as if it will never see the light of day. A combination of factors -- competing franchises, the writer's strike, Miller's commitment (against the studio's wishes) to use a cast of unknowns, a mushy script, and the usual budgetary issues — may lead to the whole thing being scrapped. Which may or may not be a bad thing: when the buzzword surrounding your project is "mediocre", sometimes not even Superman can save the day.

Vintage Trailer Roundup: Halloween Hangover Edition

Peter Smith — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Werewolves on Wheels

Here’s one of my favorite B-movie trailers, advertising "the most thrilling horror motorcycle movie ever made" — and as it turns out, the first. It seems that by 1971, just two years after Easy Rider, the motorcycle-movie well was running dry, so producers started jumping on gimmicks to liven up the genre. . . and bless ‘em for it. To be honest, I’ve never actually seen Werewolves on Wheels in its entirety, although by all accounts I’m not missing much. Then again, there’s no way anything could possibly live up to this trailer.

Torso

Here’s another classic, all the more so for how it tries to make itself look respectable by advertising itself as a production of Carlo Ponti, "the producer of Doctor Zhivago." After all, a bloated David Lean epic dovetails so neatly with classic giallo fare. Torso is an Eli Roth favorite, and it’s easy to see the film’s influence on movies like Hostel. But the teaser itself had to be an influence on Edgar Wright, who paid homage to the use of the endlessly repeated title in his Grindhouse trailer Don't.

The Shining

The greatest horror-movie teaser ever? Yes, it just may be. This goes to show that you don’t need to sell the story, or even show the actors’ faces, to effectively sell the movie. I love that Kubrick makes us wait for the blood — and that he was somehow able to convince the MPAA that it was actually rusty-colored water that came pouring out of the elevator shaft. Even if you don’t like the movie itself, the teaser is pretty stunning.

— Paul Clark