It is a bit refreshing when you hear Joe Carnahan (‘The Blacklist’, ‘The Grey’) talk about films he has or is working on. While not a man yet known for doing much in comic book to movie conversions, he has been really close to one happening, is in the middle of another happening, and really wants a third to work on. So which titles are which?

First up is the ‘Daredevil‘ films that were never meant to be. Honestly, it wasn’t a single movie that he wanted to do but three! He wanted a trilogy following the Man Without Fear through three different time periods as he slowly grew older with the music of the times to influence and mesh with the films. As Carnahan explains:

Photo credit: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

What people don’t realize about the DD project is that the producers of the film, got to me very late. They had a script that I read and I thought that while the action was wonderful, the story didn’t really have any additional bite. There was nothing. I suggested a trilogy as follows. ‘Daredevil ‘73’ ‘Daredevil ‘79’ and ‘Daredevil ‘85’ where I was going to do a kind of ‘cultural libretto’ and make the music of those eras a kind of thematic arc . So the first one would be Classic Rock, the second one would be Punk Rock and the third film would be ‘New Wave.’ The problem was, the option was almost set to lapse so we made an eleventh hour bid to Marvel to retain the rights for a bit longer so I could rework the script. Unfortunately, it just didn’t happen. Marvel wanted the rights back. I don’t blame them.

Here’s the sizzle reel that they were using to get the idea across for the feel of the first film. Part of me almost wishes he had the chance to make these movies. The rest of me is glad that the rights returned to Marvel because they have just been knocking it out of the park since ‘Iron Man’.

Next , Carnahan talked about a project he currently has in the works, ‘Nemesis‘ which is a bit of the view of “What if Batman was evil?”

“I think the biggest challenge with Nemesis is that it’s just a motherf*cker of a screenplay in that it pushes a lot of buttons and does things that both expand and violate the traditional mores of the ‘comic book adaptation’ and that’s a scary conceit when ‘The Dark Knight’ is considered the socio-political lynchpin of that particular universe. I think Nemesis f*cks with the genre in such a thumb-in-the-eye fashion that it might simply be something for another time and place. It’s incredibly topical and remains infuriatingly so. I chalk it up to another really wonderful script that my brother and I wrote that simply may be too smart-assed for its own good.

My brother and I took our real inspiration from Nemesis in the fact that only one character, the bad guy, wore a costume. From there it deviates from the source material in a number of ways but what remains alive and well is Millar’s simmering disdain for the status quo and the relentless violence that characterizes the graphic novel.”

While that is great, it does sound like he isn’t fully following the source material. While changes are always welcomed, I’m on the fence on this one as losing any of the plot would hurt. I also don’t know how they could bring that comic to the big screen.

With ‘Daredevil’ being off the table what would his next dream job be? Well this one is another film that deserves a proper treatment and he might just be the man to do it (even though it sounds as if they already have a plan for a proper reboot of ‘Spawn‘):

“I think what I detailed earlier with the Daredevil stuff would still be my dream. I think Todd McFarlane’s Spawn is so ripe to redo. It’s such a great premise and unfortunately the film adaptation sucked and robbed an otherwise great property of a proper translation to the big screen. The animated series that aired for awhile was far superior.”

While not officially having made a comic movie yet. I’ve loved Carnahan’s work to date and really hope his vision for ‘Nemesis’ ends up on the big screen with more darker comic themed conversions to follow!

Any thoughts on his take on ‘Daredevil’ over the version that is currently being put together for Netflix? Are you looking forward to his take on ‘Nemesis’? Finally do you think he might be the man for the job on rebooting ‘Spawn’? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Movie Pilot