The Guardians of the Galaxy movie has made a gaggle of money so far and enjoyed wide critical acclaim from the likes of Forbes Magazine and others. In other words, Marvel and parent company Disney have struck gold again by trusting writer/director James Gunn to make a blockbuster film with incredibly obscure feature characters. I could go on and on about the greatness of Guardians, the cast, and Mr. Gunn himself, but I’ve done that already. The point of this post is to entertain the thought of what other obscure property might make a great feature film. So what are the ground rules? The characters could be from a comic book or graphic novel. Or from a novel or stage play. I’ll entertain a few titles, and then ask you, the reader, to chime in with a few of your own.
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Suicide Squad from DC Comics tops my entries from the graphic novel department. You can read an issue #1 of this oft-reincarnated title in our copy of DC Comics: The New 52 vol 1. The basic premise of this title is simple. Lame super-villains get an offer of amnesty in exchange for performing sometimes deadly missions. This cool formula allows writers to play with otherwise ignored characters, but could this setup carry a movie? Would audiences flock to see a movie featuring the likes of Captain Boomerang and Bronze Tiger? I think they would if the producers employed marketing strategies similar to those used for Guardians.
Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett marks my choice for gamer fiction most likely to succeed in the right hands. Set in the Warhammer 40,000 sci-fi universe, this collection features three linked novels that detail the exploits of Gregor Eisenhorn, an Inquisitor in the service of the monolithic Imperium of Mankind. He and his allies hunt aliens, heretics, daemons, witches, and other threats to humanity. I imagine if someone like Mr. Gunn handled this material, it could be movie gold.
Ari Marmel’s Hot Lead, Cold Iron offers a slick mix of fantasy and noir with detective Mick Oberon solving mysteries in 1930’s era Chicago. Yes, I know it sounds like Dresden Files, but Oberon’s Fae blood makes the “rules” of the book’s action a bit different than Jim Butcher’s Dresden stuff. The 1930’s era patois Marmel uses for Oberon’s narrative voice also makes the reading fun.
I usually do these things in three’s, but I’ll step out of my comfort zone a bit and suggest a fourth title, Katherine Boo’s Behind The Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, And Hope In A Mumbai Undercity, a haunting and sometimes uplifting account of families surviving in the face of utter poverty and hopelessness. Read this and you will cry and also experience moments of triumph. Give this to the “right” film crew and you have an Oscar-candidate for sure.
Now it’s your turn. Give me some obscure titles that need the Hollywood treatment.
–Scott
Eleventh Stack 