Not much movie news this week, nor have
I seen any new movies that immediately warrant my critique, so I
thought I'd take the time to share some of my dream movie projects,
movies that I'd really really like to see get made, even though it
seems far from likely they ever actually will be. If I ever got to be
a director (fat chance!), these movies would be on top of my priority
list to shoot. Now I just have to live in hope someone else will make
these films some time or another, though I know the chances of that
happening, or even the chances of the final products turning out
satisfactory, are tremendously slim to say the least.
Storm
Based on the comic books (there's no
better translation for the Dutch 'stripalbums' available) by top
artist Don Lawrence (RIP, 1928-2003), Storm is positively
space opera gold. After receiving international acclaim with his
wonderfully bizarre but epic Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire,
Lawrence began work on this new science fiction series for the Dutch
Eppo comic magazine: it soon turned out to be his magnum opus.
Revolving around the astronaut Storm who gets lost in time and
returns to Earth finding it irrevocably changed, it follows his quest
to discover what happened to his home planet. It soon turns out that
in his absence Earth was conquered by the extra-terrestrial Azurian
race who reduced the human populace to a barbarian state. Now Storm
and his new found female companion Roodhaar (whose original English
translation is not Redhair, but Ember) must start an uprising of
humanity against their sinister and powerful Azurian overlords.
It gets even better in the second half
of the Storm series. After returning peace to Earth, Storm and
Ember are swept across time and space to the other side of the
galaxy, to the giant planet Pandarve, occupying a pocket of space all
its own, where normal rules of physics don't apply and even planets
themselves turn out to be life forms. The creepy and cruel ruler of
Pandarve, theocrat Marduk, has brought Storm there for his own wicked
purposes (conquering the multiverse, whatever that means), which of
course Storm defies, after which he sets out on a new journey,
exploring the strange new world of Pandarve while evading Marduk's
numerous agents.
Both the Earth and Pandarve segments
of the Storm series feature a wide variety of extremely exotic
locales, fantastic monsters and beautiful women (including some
lovely gratuitous nudity), all superbly drawn by Lawrence, and, after
his death, by various other talented artists who bravely continued
his legacy. Many fans have dreamed of a Storm movie for
decades, and even though at times there seemed to be something
genuine in the works, it never materialized and most likely never
will. The main reason is, as it usually is, a matter of money. To
translate Storm to the silver screen in an acceptable fashion,
pleasing fans and drawing in crowds of people new to this material,
would require a very large sum of cash, along the lines only
Hollywood could afford. Storm being Dutch property, it
certainly will never be made in the Netherlands, unless it is a
cartoon, which isn't a very appealing thought. And at this point in
cinema history, an expensive space opera blockbuster is not something
Hollywood studios are willing to ship out the big bucks for,
considering the very recent flop called John Carter (which, I
must strongly state, never deserved to flop!). Additionally, to do
the source material justice, one Storm film just won't cut it.
The series reads like classic science fiction serials, often ending
openly enough for more. To condense the Earth saga (which was six to
nine albums long, depending on where you feel it ended) into one film
would either make for a very long film (which I don't mind), or a
very feeble film. A TV series might do the trick in this regard, but
the money issue remains, thus making quite sure Storm will probably
stay a comic character for now, instead of storming to movie
theatres.
Shadows of the Empire
This would be Star Wars Episode 5.5,
which alone would make it a dubious project for many. However, that
didn't stop Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the animated Episode
2.5 movie, which showed exactly what direction no fan would ever hope
Shadows of the Empire would take. A live action film of
Shadows of the Empire could however be a fabulous event,
reuniting several beloved characters and returning to the classic
style of Star Wars' finest hour, The Empire Strikes Back.
Set directly after that grandest of
all Star Wars films, the Shadows of the Empire comic
books basically tell three stories. Firstly, there's the continuing
mission of the original hero characters Luke Skywalker and Princess
Leia to rescue their friend Han Solo, encased in carbonite, from the
clutches of the ruthless bounty hunter Boba Fett. Secondly, it tells
of Boba's own experiences trying to get Solo to Jabba the Hutt to
claim his prize, while staying in one piece after his rival bounty
hunters band together to open the hunt on him, with the purpose of
claiming Solo for their own and putting an end to the career of the
greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy. And lastly, there's Darth
Vader's ungoing quest to draw his son Luke to the Dark Side of the
Force, in which he finds himself thwarted by the reptilian alien
Xizor, the leader of the Black Sun crime syndicate who has his own
agenda, eliminating Vader and becoming the Emperor's “heir”. A
lot of character potential here, unlike most of the Star Wars
movies allowed, but still with the familiar and ever popular Star
Wars planets, aliens and set pieces everybody has come to love.
So why not make this into a movie? If
you even got George Lucas to agree (which seems completely out of the
question), the question then remains, how would you do it if not
animated? The Clone Wars film turned out a total dud, but you
can't get original characters like Luke and Leia to return after
thirty years, except if you were to recast them, which undoubtedly
many people would feel bad about, including the original actors. A
live action Shadows of the Empire film, no matter how awesome
the end result would be, is best described as a fanboy's dream about
the now lost times of the good ol' Star Wars heydays. And it's
probably best to just pick up the comic again whenever you've reached
this particular level of dreamy nostalgia. Or play the video game. Or
enjoy the action figures. Remember, despite the limited number of
Star Wars films, the franchise has spawned enough merchandise
to enjoy it on many alternate levels.
The Lost World
Now here's a book that has been made
into a film on multiple occasions already, unlike the other entries
on this list. However, all of the Lost World films left
something to be desired. The best iteration, for example, lacked
sound and colour, being a silent film from 1925. And some of the
other incarnations were so abysmally lousy they are best forgotten
altogether. Still, this is a classic tale from the age of early 20th
century exploration, written by world renowned author Arthur Conan
Doyle, that despite many attempts still hasn't fully been done
justice, despite its straightforward and fairly simple story line.
The hot headed London professor Challenger claims he has found a lost
world of prehistoric creatures on a mountain plateau in the South
American jungle, after which an expedition is sent out to validate
his bold statements. Upon arrival, they find out just how right he
was, and the small group is stranded on the remote plateau amidst all
sorts of nasty “extinct” creatures, where they have to fight for
survival against overwhelming odds. Seems like a certain hit, a great
mix of adventure, action and excitement. Think Peter Jackson's King
Kong without the monkey.
However, despite such narrative
simplicity, it's been a while since a similar project hit movie
screens. Maybe it's just too romantic and naive, too old fashioned
for the contemporary moviegoing audience. Not to mention it would of
course also be quite expensive to see it done right, relying on an
abundance of visual effects work. For the moment, Hollywood just
isn't very prone to taking risks, since it would rather rely on
franchise names to help sell their products more easily, and The
Lost World just isn't a franchise (though considering Doyle's
number of Challenger stories, Challenger could be called a
franchise after all, just not one with enough of a name to apeal to
the general audience). However, we are living in the Golden Age of
Remakes, where Hollywood is willing to regurgitate any old story in
the hopes of making a profit, so revisiting the Lost World is
not completely out of the question. Until that time, lost this world
will stay.
Batman VS Predator
Speaking of franchise names, Batman
currently is one of the biggest around in Hollywood for sure. Batman
Begins and The Dark Knight have paved the way for a darker
Caped Crusader, with overwhelming critical and audience acceptance.
The Dark Knight Rises will continue this trend for 2012, but
what's in it for Bats after that? How about going even grittier and
combining it with a second franchise to make for a super franchise?
Sounds like something that would interest Hollywood, were it not for
the fact the other franchise is Predator.
It worked surprisingly well on paper
though, when the Dark Knight found himself drawn in a conflict
between the Gotham City underworld and an invisible killer who hacked
and slashed its way through Gotham's upper echelons, killing mob
bosses, prize fighters and police officers alike in his attempt to
draw out what he considered to be the ultimate trophy, namely a bit
of superhero. After almost killing Batman in their first round, the
vicious extra-terrestrial found out he was in for more than just a
street brawl when the vigilante returned with a vengeance, bound to
clear Gotham of this alien mess. Batman VS Predator was bloody
and violent, but it read like a Gothic horror story and looked like
one even more with its dark and shadowy colour palette, showing just
how much you can do when you combine two very different franchises to
good results. But having the two of them join forces cinematically
might just prove to be impossible.
Though it has its own loyal fan base,
the latest Robert Rodriguez' produced attempt to revitalize the
Predator franchise for an average audience, Predators,
probably wasn't successful enough for Hollywood's taste. Plus, this
franchise works best when rated R, and that's probably a bit too
hardcore for Batman fans who are used to PG-13 for now. What's
more, there's the issue of copyrights. Fox currently holds the rights
for the Predator franchise, while Batman belongs to
rival corporation Warner Pictures. At this point, it seems more
likely we'll see Fox and Warner go to war for real than it does for
Batman and Predator to wrestle each other on the big
screen. That at least gives the younger Batman fans the
oportunity to grow up and reach the Predator age, so they can
go and read the graphic novel without finding it too scary to see
their hero being nearly sliced and diced by a creepy alien creature.
Whatever, we knew Batman was
gonna win anyway. There's plenty of Predators, but there's only one
Dark Knight.
So I end my list of potentially awe
inspiring movie projects here, but there's plenty more where that
came from. Be prepared to revisit this topic in another slow week
because I can think of a few more works in other media that
desperately need a movie made.
