With comic book movies continuing to be priorities at most studios over time (despite the fact that there are just as many that perform like “The Losers” as become smash hits like “The Dark Knight”), it seems like many rising directors have at least one graphic novel that they’re bursting to adapt. Samuel Bayer, the director of the imminent “Nightmare on Elm Street” remake, is among them — he told Film School Rejects (via /Film )that he’s got his eye on the popular series “The Boys.” Unfortunately for him, someone else seems to have beaten him to it.
He told the site that “I would die to that comic book. From what I’ve heard from the producers on the movie is that Adam McKay is doing it. He did ‘Anchorman,’ I guess. The studio is really hot on him…” He’s hopeful that a strong box office performance for his horror remake might get him on board the project, but we wouldn’t hold our breath if we were him.
The series, by “Preacher” scribe Garth Ennis, is a superhero satire focusing on a secret CIA group whose mission is to keep tabs on, and sometimes violently punish, out-of-control superheroes. It doesn’t seem like an immediate fit for McKay, whose directorial efforts so far have been made up of four collaborations with Will Ferrell. But from the trailer for their upcoming comedy “The Other Guys,” it looks like McKay has a capable eye for shooting action, and it’ll be interesting to see him take on something darker — something like his Funny or Die clip “Green Team” (embedded below, because it’s still amazing; NSFW) suggests it’s not as much of a stretch as you might think.
A number of other comedy stars have been linked to the project in various ways; Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote a draft of the script, which appears to have been abandoned now in favor of “Clash of the Titans” team Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (oh dear…), while the main character, Scottish conspiracy theorist Wee Hughie, is based on Simon Pegg’s likeness, and the “Hot Fuzz” star wrote the foreword to one of the trade paperbacks, making him the obvious front-runner to play the role in the film version. The Rogen/Goldberg version sounded like it could have been an intriguing deconstruction of the superhero genre — something that “Kick-Ass” flirted with, without ever quite achieving. Could McKay’s take manage it?
