Hollywood is a ravenous beast, always on the hunt for new story markets to cull from. Lately, directors and producers have been stalking prey en masse from the comic realm as seen with the explosion of the Marvel universe films and the recent releases of less mainstream characters such as Kick-Ass, Andy Diggle’s The Losers and Warren Elis’ Red, though there has always been a steady trickle of comic films.
With the bombardment of duds such as Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Catwoman, Schwarzenegger’s performance in Batman & Robin and Frank Miller’s horrible rendition of Eisners’ gem The Spirit, comic book based films may be leaving a bad taste with filmgoers who may be blaming the comic medium for their lost money. The general production of comic films has been improving as seen with films such as The Watchmen and the star studded Jonah Hex (John Malkovich seems to love comics) but haven’t truly broken from the comic fan base. Below are 6 of the best comic book adaptations proving that the medium still has much to offer for the larger film going audience.
Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim as he fights to win the heart of Ramona Flowers by defeating her seven evil exes. Various pop culture references and surreal fight scenes meld well in the film version of this cult comic. This film, like Sin City, is a good example of producers successfully transferring comic atmospheres to the big screen.
Ghost World
Another slim box office film which has a cult following, the Ghost World film stays very true to the Daniel Clowe’s comic. Zwigoff presents a very poignant view of teenage ennui post high school built around rich characters that aren’t caricatures.
Men in Black
The 1990 comic series put out by Aircel/Malibu/Marvel comics provided the beginnings of the hit film franchise with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Many filmgoers never even knew it was based off of a comic book and took the film at face value.
Dick Tracy
The 1990 Warren Beatty film which, along with the 1989 Batman, reinvigorated Hollywood’s interest in comic books as a worthy source for high grossing stories.
The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan’s amazing rendition of the Batman universe completely washed away the horrible Batman franchise before it. The Dark Knight also marked the appearance of Nolan’s realistic version of an anarchic Joker and wowed filmgoers with Ledger’s brilliantly disconcerting performance before his tragic death. This is one of my all time favourites, and definitely not a film that would make me throw a shoe at my Samsung TV after watching (thank you for that shoe print Daredevil).
