Last week, we found out that Fox was going to turn “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” into a TV show. Fox’s 2003 film adaptation of the comic book by Alan Moore was universally panned by critics and made Sean Connery retire from acting. So, one wonders why Fox would go down that path once again. If they’re simply doing it to piss off creator Alan Moore then, well… it might be working.
Luckily, Entertainment Weekly was able to get a hold of Alan Moore and the outspoken comic book writer (who has basically never approved of any adaptations of his work) had a lot to say regarding the matter: “Me and [co-creator] Kevin [O’Neill] have been chuckling about that one, we only heard about it the other day. When [DC Comics] did the recent Watchmen prequel comics I said all of sorts of deeply offensive things about the modern entertainment industry clearly having no ideas of its own and having to go through dust bins and spittoons in the dead of night to recycle things."
He added: “The announcement that there is a ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ television series hasn’t caused me to drastically alter my opinions. Now it seems they are recycling things that have already proven not to work.”
Moore seems more amused and chagrined than upset, which is understandable considering how many other times Hollywood has adapted his work to varying degrees of success (“From Hell,” “Watchmen,” “V for Vendetta”). Moore has never had any kind words to say about any of those adaptations. Then again, as the AV Club points out, his cantankerous attitude regarding the matter can be taken with a grain of salt seeing as how he’s willingly sold the rights to his comic books (he doesn’t like calling them graphic novels) while also claiming that adaptations are “evil.” According to him, stealing characters from well-known literary sources is totally ok, though.
At any rate, nothing Moore says will ever stop Fox, who already have a writer working on the series pilot, Michael Green (“Kings,” “Smallville”). We’ll see if Fox will actually do the original comic book justice this time around.