I haven’t followed Garth Ennis’s career beyond Preacher, but if The Boys is half as clever as that title’s early run, Neal H. Moritz would seem a curious choice to produce the big-screen adaptation. You know and love Moritz from the xXx films, Stealth and I Am Legend; he deals in testosterone and inanity. Give him a talking, homicidal stealth bomber, and he will give you magic; give him something with a little more nuance than your average Fast and the Furious entry, and he might flail a little.
I’m guessing there’s nuance to The Boys. Any comic book featuring a character based on the rippling chunk of manhood that is Simon Pegg has to have something going on behind the eyes (if I’m wrong, you have the below talk backs and the message boards to claim otherwise). The basic story concerns a group of elite CIA operatives who police and occasionally pick off rogue superheroes – which is interesting given Ennis’s hostility to authority. Then again, I guess superheroes, if left unchecked, would represent the ultimate nightmare of authority run amok (Alan Moore may have dealt with this issue once upon a time). Funny how that works.
Moritz will develop The Boys for Columbia Pictures. If he’s smart, he’ll let Ennis adapt his own material; if he’s Neal Moritz, he’ll get Rob Cohen involved and make a big mess. I don’t have a dog in this fight, so he can do whatever he pleases. But I’ve a feeling some of you feel otherwise.
Finally, if you want an update on HBO’s Preacher series, here goes: it was close to happening, and now it ain’t.
17 comments
"Finally, if you want an update on HBO's Preacher series, here goes: it was close to happening, and now it ain't."
Well fuck. I was really looking forward to that.
The Boys and nuance don't really mesh together. Its rather terrible.
Its amazing since Ennis' Punisher has truly become one of the best comics/crime story of the last 20 years…The Boys is juvenile and puerile trash. Course there's no way any of it would fly as a movie so I'm sure it will be as faithful as Wanted.
THE BOYS is a cheap, nasty, callous, ugly book, all obnoxious shock value with no heart. That said, Ennis work on PUNISHER (MAX) is probably the greatest work he's ever done. It's downright brilliant. Powerful and harrowing, brutal while never gratuitous, it's his most mature work, and a triumph for Marvel Comics in general. One might say it's the comic equivalent of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (but perhaps even more powerful, just because it does more and goes further; read "The Slavers" alone, for example).
Ho, Ho, Ho. A pedo joke for the title. Beaks you cockbag, you make owen look good.
It'd be interesting to see how they would end the movie though, like what the real conflict would be, as it's been a pretty slow burn so far. The Seven, a Justice League knock-off, is the main threat to The Boys, but they haven't really clashed in the comics yet. There's been a showdown with a Teen Titans-like team, a murder mystery involving an Iron Man/Batman-type character that can't keep it in his pants, and a trip to Russia, but most of the Seven story has just been built up in various subplots so far.
I enjoy the series a lot (the RUssia arc was a little weak though), and I'm just a big fan of Ennis in general, but it seems to be aimed more at people that know a lot about the ins and outs of superhero comics, their characters, and the genre in general, not necessarily an audience of non-comic reading moviegoers that might not get some of the in-jokes. While it could work as a movie, I hope they don't give it the LXG treatment, where they pretty much took the concept, dumbed it down COMPLETELY, and just did something really different with it.
Speaking of which, how much does "Wanted" not look or seem like the source material? WOW…
The Boys certainly has plenty of good old fashioned depravity in it but it lacks the heart and character of Preacher. Consider the ending of that series and it makes you re-evaluate the entire bloody series as being about a friendship that could only happen in America (for all the good and bad that goes with it). So far The Boys just seems like a nasty, occasionally fun, opportunity for Ennis to poke the superhero tropes he doesn't like in the eye. I doubt Rob Cohen would even give it THAT much subtlety.
The Boys has been good, if a little too on the depraved side, but you really, really, really need to check out Ennis's Punisher MAX for some of the best written stories being produced right now (even with only 6 issues left).
"The Slavers" from The Punisher MAX series by Ennis is the equivalent of Children of Men of comics. It's the most brilliant and profound crime story i've ever read. Like the other guy said it is far more powerful than No Country for Old Men. It's the best thing Ennis has ever written and one of the best stories of the decade. Like other people have said including Brian K.Vaughn. Garth Ennis' The Punisher Max is the most consistently great comic of the decade. The Slavers was so powerful, sad, realistic, shocking and fuck what a brutal and poetic ending. Really made me 'hate' crime much like Frank says in the story.
Rock the Bells. Beaks, you truly are the G.O.A.T..
Oooohhh, believe me, I've been following Ennis's Punisher since the beginning 🙂 At the time that he took the book over (just over 8 years ago), Preacher was my favorite series, while the Punisher, even after years of neglect and misuse, was my favorite character. When the 2 came together? Perfect. For a few months, until Preacher ended that summer, you even had the same writer/artist team, Ennis and Dillon, on both books. When Punisher went to Marvel's MAX imprint, it jumped to a whole different level, as the Punisher became the type of book it always should've been. I can't recommend it enough. "Slavers" is one of my three favorite arcs so far ("Up is DOwn and Black is White" and the most recent rematch with Barracuda might be ahead of it), and I'm really interested to see who they get to write the book when Ennis wraps up his run later this year. As far as the original topic of the post goes, I can understand why some people might not like The Boys, but don't let that turn you off of Garth Ennis's other books if you have yet to check them out. He writes a lot of stories that people who ordinarily wouldn't pick up comics can enjoy and get into.
Are you sad nerds really comparing Garth Ennis to Cormac McCarthy? Hilarious.
The Boys is pitch black dark, and lacks the emotional core of Preacher. I'll be curious to see how this gets adapted and if it retains the more squirm inducing aspects of the books (such as thinly veiled stand ins for Superman, Batman, and The Flash gang raping an evangelical Christian Wonder Woman as initiation into this world's JLA).
Hey Jay Junk, just so you know, Ennis work on Punisher is every bit as brilliant as anything Cormac McCarthy has ever written. It's some of the best crime fiction written in the last decade, period.
Ennis may hate authority, but he hates superheroes even more. The man has a palpable hatred for super-heroes, so this comic doesn't come as a surprise to me.
I rather like The Boys. I think Ennis is a top notch writer. And the fact that HBO isn't making a Preacher series kinda ruins my hour. I was really looking forward to that. maybe Showtime will pick it up. They have more balls (Dexter, Weeds) than HBO when it comes to good ongoing series anyways.
Hey, that kind of gay humor headline is my stock in trade – stop ripping me off boys or I'll spanky you silly
Uh, I am John Hefner too but did not write above comments. Is not a very wide spread name so wouldn't want any one in America or any where else to actually think it is my John Hefner comments. I know I am more respected than E.F. Hutton but with out the same pay, respect and benefits.
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