While we all know that ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen‘ is coming to Fox, we might not know that it’s creator, Alan Moore, thinks this is a horrible idea.
Many of Moore’s works have already been adapted to the big screen (‘Watchmen’, ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, and ‘From Hell’), though this is his first that will be adapted to the small one. While not all of these adaptations have lived up to his actual writing, they’ve all had something positive to watch. Moore has always had heated thoughts on the media industry as a whole (from comics to films) and now they taking the one main failed translation of his work and running with it again?
The outspoken Moore was clearly not happy about that one.
When news of ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ series hit, there was no mention on whether Moore or co-creator Kevin O’Neill would be involved in the television series. Thanks to a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, it has been confirmed that they have nothing to do with the show and think it’s a bad idea. In fact, taking out an idea that hasn’t worked and trying it again is generally a bad idea in Moore’s book and he happily spoke up on that thought:
“Me and Kevin 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. 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.”
Hell, Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, so I can fully see why Moore might be thinking that. Sure Hollywood has been able to successfully reuse properties before, but the vast majority of the time it just ends up with people complaining.
As for Moore returning to mainstream comics at any point in the near future? Here’s what he had to say:
“If I am going to do something in any medium, then I am certainly temperamental and abrasive enough to insist that it’s going to be done the way that I want to do it. This is pretty much the way I insist upon working. There really wouldn’t be any point in me doing something that I didn’t want to do. But since that entails not wanting to work for a large company — [due to the] editorial interference that would come with that sort of arrangement — that pretty much only leaves me with unconventional approaches.”
It’s good to know that this creator is still out there, working his magic, in strange new ways. What do you think about ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ television show? Is Moore overreacting or is Fox’s most recent plan bound to be a failure?
