Janet Hetherington takes a look at why graphic novels are leaping from comic shops and bookstore shelves to big screens across North America and beyond.
It seems you cant read a movie listing these days without coming across a film inspired by comicbooks or graphic novels from superhero action (Fantastic Four, Batman Begins) to film noir (Frank Millers Sin City) to crime drama (Road to Perdition) to edgy slice-of-life commentary (Ghost World, American Splendor) and more.
Turning comics into film is nothing new. Early serials featured the exploits of Dick Tracy, Batman and Captain Marvel. However, todays graphic novels are even hotter commodities for Hollywood scouts; in effect, they are instant pre-packaged stories, complete with storyboards.
Film is a visual medium and graphic novels provide a ready-made glimpse into what the finished movie could look like, comments William ONeill, president of Hurricane Entertainment and creator of the Chassis comics series, whose live-action film version has Academy Award winner Ben Burtt attached to it. People want a complete story and the control to read it when they want to, he says. In addition, ONeill notes that graphic novels offer fresh and new concepts that appeal to a wider audience.
One such concept is Exhibit A Press Supernatural Law, the story of lawyers Wolff & Byrd and their eclectic paranormal clientele, which has been optioned by Nancy Roberts of Stampede Entertainment (producers of Tremors and its subsequent sequels). Jackie Estrada, publisher of the Supernatural Law graphic novels by award-winning writer/artist Batton Lash, says there are many reasons graphic novels are high on Hollywoods radar.
The most obvious is the rise in the popularity of manga, Estrada says. The second has been better distribution of graphic novels to bookstores and the reaching of a critical mass in the number of quality titles available. The third is the efforts of Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly to bring attention to graphic novels. Fourth is mainstream publishers (HarperCollins, Pantheon, etc.) having best-selling graphic novels, such as Persepolis and Jimmy Corrigan, Estrada continues. And the fifth is media tie-ins: lots of popular movies have been based on comics and book buyers have sought out such titles as American Splendor, Ghost World, Hellboy and Frank Millers Sin City, along with all the superhero stuff.
The tone and feel of a good graphic novel is immediately obvious, says Nat Gertler, comics creator, scriptwriter and co-author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Creating Graphic Novels. You can flip through most graphic novels and get a real sense of the texture of the work, even if you dont have a clue on the details of the plot. This isnt nearly so true with prose works or even spec movie scripts. In fact, its quite possible for two people to read all the way through the same movie script and end up with a very different sense of the works texture. I suspect that graphic novels help everyone involved with Hollywood decision-making be on the same page from the start, and that should make the decision to option the material easier.
Box Office Punch
Another reason is, of course, money. Fantastic Four (2005), released by 20th Century Fox, opened with $56.1 million at 3,602 theaters, the fifth highest-grossing start ever for a comicbook movie. It has currently earned over $203 million worldwide. The FFs web-crawling companion, Spider-Man, has earned over $403 million for Sony and Marvel Comics with Spider-Man (2002) and over $373 million with Spider-Man 2 (2004). Frank Millers Sin City (2005) from Dimension Films, based on the Dark Horse graphic novels, has earned critical success as well as a sinful sum of over $74 million. Warner Bros. newest film treatment of DC Comics Dark Knight, Batman Begins (2005), has brought over $191 million back to the batcave.
Technology has also added punch to the appeal of adapting graphic novels to the big screen. These are iconic characters with terrific and relatable storylines that generations of people have grown up being aware of, observes Gregory Noveck, svp, creative affairs, DC Comics. Furthermore, with many of these properties eliciting awe-inspiring visuals, the technology has finally evolved to a point where films can depict these images realistically.
In the case of the more genre-oriented, blockbuster-type productions, like Batman Begins and Spider-Man, the technology of film has finally caught up with the imaginations of the comics creators, so film can effectively (and at this point, perhaps superiorly) adapt these creations in a way that they never could have before, agrees Eric Reynolds, editor and publicist, Fantagraphics Books.
Fantagraphics is the publisher of Daniel Clowes acclaimed Ghost World graphic novel, which was adapted to film and nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award in 2002 (screenplay by Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff). Ghost World also earned respectable box office, over $8 million worldwide.
Fantagraphics newest graphic-novel-to-film is Art School Confidential, also by Clowes, who wrote the screenplay. Terry Zwigoff returns to direct. Art School is done and ready to be released sometime later this year or early next (Sony should be scheduling a release date in the next few weeks), advises Reynolds.
Another filmed graphic novel that earned an Academy Award nomination in 2004 for Best Adapted Screenplay is Harvey Pekars American Splendor, which also earned nearly $8 million worldwide. Its slice-of-life sensibility shows that ordinary heroes can make as big a screen impression as superheroes.
It seems there is as equal a playing field for graphic novel genres as there is for any other kind of adapted source material, says DC Comics Noveck.
Spider-Man and X-Men have been huge hits, along with films like Men in Black, which proved that the comicbook source material doesnt have to be well-known, comments Hugh Sterbakov, created with (with actor Seth Green) of Freshmen comic series from Top Cow.
Sourcing the Material
For filmmakers, finding quality graphic novels to make into movies can be as easy as walking into a comicbook store or attending comicbook conventions.
Some publishers and even some individual creators have Hollywood representation working the studios trying to find a home for the project. Other deals come about because someone at the studio simply bought the comic at one of L.A.s fine comic shops and liked it, says author Gertler.
About eight months ago, my wife and I had our first child, so Ive dialed back the number of conventions that I attend, sticking to the local ones, Gertler says. However, local to me is southern California, so my local cons include the Comic-Con International in San Diego and WizardWorld Los Angeles, and the Hollywood folks were certainly there for both.
Exhibit As Estrada says, We had a booth at Book Expo America, but there were only a couple of folks who came by to ask us about media rights. One reason that San Diego is such a focal point is its proximity to Los Angeles. These other shows are usually all on the east coast.
There were at least three movie production companies at San Diego this year that were set up specifically to do films based on comics/graphic novel properties, Estrada says. The latest trend seems to be comics companies starting up solely to produce titles that can be shopped to Hollywood, and lots of these titles are never actually produced in large quantities or sold in comics shops.
One of the reasons comics creators may be doing this is because Hollywood wants them to. Writer Hugh Sterbakov first pitched a movie idea but ended up authoring Freshmen, his Top Cow comics hit, after Hollywood powers-that-be said they wanted to see a comic first.
Freshmen is about a group of kids who just get to college and are instantly outcasts, Sterbakov explains. Theyre placed in the science building because of dormitory overflow, and theyre picked on by the older frat guys. A special machine explodes, giving them super powers based on whatever theyre thinking at that moment. Some of the powers are useful one girl is able to jump into peoples minds and sift through their memories. Another guy, who is drinking a beer for the first time, is able to share his intoxication with others by burping at them. And then we have a talking beaver as well, the school mascot. It has a comedic tone, but its a character-driven story and these kids have a lot of pathos.
We pitched it as a film, and several studio heads said we should go off and make a comic first, Sterbakov recalls. Im a lifelong comic nut (I have a first-printing of every appearance of Spider-Man until 2001), but I didnt know anyone in the industry or how to go about it. Eventually, I decided to give it a go and my friends introduced me to some comic folks. I shopped Freshmen around to a couple of companies and Top Cow jumped at it.
Ive had some requests by producers to represent Freshmen, but we already have a feature producer we like, and were deciding now whether we want to go into film or TV, Sterbakov says. I didnt witness any studios trying to option material at the shows we attended (San Diego and Philadelphia), but there were Hollywood people Ive met and developed with there, so Im sure they were keeping their eyes open.
Ive worked in Hollywood for many years, Ive sold features and TV pilots, Sterbakov says. You dont have to understand the industry so much as you have to find people who represent you that do. Some managers, like my friend Ford Gilmore, specifically represent comicbook talent in Hollywood. He knows the ins and outs of the business and can protect creators. So once people have a project, they need to find good representation to protect them. Or they can learn the business through books and the Net, and take their own course. Its just harder that way.
Redlight, Greenlight
Even when a graphic novel gets the nod, its not always an easy process turning published pages into motion pictures. Ghost World took little more than a half-year to lens and edit, but that was only after four arduous years of development and waiting for a studio greenlight, Fantagraphics Reynolds says.
There are several existing options out on our books and comics but apparently unlike most publishers, we prefer to not to talk about them because 99 percent of the time, nothing actually comes from them, Reynolds says. Currently several of our authors, including Tony Millionaire, Peter Bagge, and Los Bros Hernandez have deals in the hopper, as they say in the biz.
Please note my excellent use of industry lingo, as in deals, hopper and biz, Reynolds quips. You can tell Im a real powerbroker, no?
Most biz deals need lawyers, and Exhibit A has two of the best. Beware the creatures of the night they have lawyers! is the tag line for Exhibit A Press Supernatural Law. Lawyers Alanna Wolff and Jeff Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre, have been taking on supernatural cases since 1979, when they first appeared in The Brooklyn Paper. From 1983 to 1997, The National Law Journal ran the weekly strip. The pair didnt get their own comicbook until May of 1994, and Supernatural Law has seen a lot of option action, including a time with Universal Studios.
The series has been under option by various producers and/or studios since the late 1980s, when it was a newspaper strip, Exhibit As Estrada says. The way it ended up at Universal is that it had been optioned by the couple who had originally made the Max Headroom movie in England. They were trying to sell it to television but were having problems. They hooked up with a manager, Nancy Roberts of Stampede Entertainment. In the wake of the success of Men in Black, the big studios were suddenly interested in the concept, and Nancy was able to set up a bidding war; Universal made the best offer.
Nancy Roberts was the one who dealt directly with Universal, Estrada says. She kept us apprised of all the various meetings with studio executives, and we received copies of all the various versions of the script. Batton made notes on the scripts, but he had no direct contact with anyone at Universal, she says, adding, The option with Universal was up last year. Supernatural Law is currently being shopped around by Nancy Roberts and Stampede Entertainment.
Author Gertler also has some irons in the fire. Im continuing to work on The Big Con, a graphic novel set at a comics convention which was previewed in the Idiots Guide. And Im producing issues of Licensable Bear, a humorous comicbook series about a cute lil character who just wants to get licensed for products. But the work that continues to draw Hollywood interest is The Factor, a superhero series where you never see the superhero, he says. Its a look at how the existence of a hero has an impact on the lives of lots of other folks cops, crooks, reporters, people average and otherwise. Its done as a series of interrelated short stories and vignettes. Its not actually signed anywhere at the moment, but there has again been interest expressed in it as a TV project.
Chassis creator William ONeill decided to take matters into his own hands to race his comic into film. Chassis is set in the world of rocket car racing in a retro-futuristic 1949. Its the story of a young woman who longs to be a rocket racer but her father wont allow it. Partly due to the dangers involved in the high speed race, but mostly because of the dangerous and nefarious men who run the sport, ONeill says.
Weve been scouted in the past, but with Chassis we decided the best route was to make things happen on our own, ONeill says. I suggested to wife and business partner, Jan Utstein-ONeill, that four time Academy Award winning Sound Designer, Editor and Director, Ben Burtt would be perfect to direct a Chassis feature film. I had been a fan of his for years and after I ran down a long list of Bens credentials, Jan was convinced.
Eventually we got Ben on the phone and gave him a brief description of Chassis. He invited us up to Skywalker Ranch to talk some more, ONeill remembers. After reading the film treatment we provided him, Ben agreed to be attached to the project. It was his idea to produce a short film, or teaser to whet the appetites of the Hollywood executives.
We are just about to close a deal for a graphic novel collecting our four-issue mini-series of John Carpenters Snake Plissken Chronicles, ONeill says. We also have a number of other projects currently in varying stages of development.
As for comics companies like DC, there are lots of projects in the wind. Superman will don cape and costume again in 2006 in Superman Returns. A film version of V for Vendetta, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is set for this year. In general, there is a confluence of events, thought, opinions, zeitgeist and storytelling that conspire to trigger the production of a property at a certain time, says DC Comics Noveck. We dont really comment on development, but its fairly well-known that Joss Whedon is writing a script for Wonder Woman and David Goyer is working on The Flash. They are developing Shazam, Y: The Last Man and we3 at New Line.
As for Marvel, theres more more X-Men, more Spider-Man, and Nic Cage as Ghost Rider (set for release on August 4, 2006) and more to come, as Marvel Enterprises, Inc. boasts a library of over 5,000 proprietary characters, a rich resource for Marvel Studios.
They [movie companies] dont see graphic novels as a medium, they see them as a genre, says Exhibit As Estrada. And as a genre, everything from Constantine to X-Men to From Hell to the above-named movies has found some sort of paying audience. But I think the main reason is that comics are seen by Hollywood as storyboards on paper so it makes them easier to pitch to studio executives.
Keeping the Faith
Moviemakers who turn graphic novels into films have a built-in audience the comics readers. Die-hard fans often have high expectations when it comes to seeing their favorite graphic novels turned into movies.
Its rare these days that you cant find a graphic novel that translates well into a film, says Lee Dawson, publicist for Dark Horse Comics, Inc. That is, of course, when its done right.
Dark Horse Entertainments film The Mask (1994), based on the Dark Horse comic series created by Mike Richardson, made Jim Carrey a star and was instrumental in revitalizing turning comics into film with its offbeat sense of humor and special effects. Other films based on Dark Horse comics like Mike Mignolas Hellboy (a Dark Horse Entertainment production) and Frank Millers Sin City (Millers own production), have gained strong following from fans because they stay true to the creators vision. Venerable animator Will Vinton reports that he is doing his first graphic novel, Jack Hightower for Dark Horse Comics, which may then get the film treatment.
Dark Horse president and founder Mike Richardson seeks out properties from Dark Horse that can become films and other quality properties as well. Mike works a lot trying to find a good home for these creator-owned properties as films, says Dawson.
Dawson notes that Dark Horse Entertainment has numerous titles in development. In addition, MTV Films is buying feature rights to Damn Nation, Andy Cosbys Dark Horse comics tale of a vampire takeover of the United States.
Dark Horse alumnus Frank Miller has followed his own vision with the production of his Sin City film. Director Robert Rodriguez took advantage of Frank Millers gritty style featuring black-and-white art and spot color to bring the panels in Sin City books to amazing life on screen. Im sure that comes down to how much the director respects and/or wants to directly mimic the source material, comments writer Sterbakov. In some instances, like Sin City, the art is a fundamental part of the storytelling, and tells story in its own regard by conveying theme and tone.
Sometimes how well the graphic novel translates to film involves how much input the creator has. That depends on the deal the creator has, but in most cases it seems to be little or none, comments author Gertler. Many creators basically sign away their control when they cut the deal with a publisher to put out a comic, long before theres any film deal. If you want to make those big Hollywood bucks, youre generally going to have to turn over that control.
Folks can look to Frank Miller as an exception, Gertler notes, but the reason that he managed to get so much control over Sin City is that he wasnt trying to get a film made. He turned down a number of approaches because he just wasnt interested. It was only when Rodriguez approached him about being having control that he became interested enough to allow a film to be made.
Another aspect of making graphic novels into films is cultivating new readers of the comics themselves. Bill Chappell, owner of the Cave Comics store in Ottawa, Canada, says that he was amazed when people came into his shop asking specifically for copies of Frank Millers Sin City graphic novels. This is not a normal off-the-street type of purchase were seeing, Chappell says. People who saw the film want to get copies of the book. Then theyre further blown away when they learn about Millers work on Daredevil and Dark Knight.
Chappell says that Batman Begins also brought new readers to his store, as did Spider-Man and Hellboy.
Graphic novels are spawning a new breed of entertainment read the book, see the movie, buy all the related stuff. For creators, the challenge is to keep their eyes on the prize while keeping as much control as possible of their creations.
The benefit we have to having created the comicbook first is that well always own the comicbook and have more power to option, rather than sell, the rights away, says Freshmen writer Sterbakov. Well always be able to license the comic independent of the movie.
Ultimately, though, Hollywood is the biggest shark in the ocean, muses Sterbakov. If youre going to play with them, theyre going to eat you. Your only other option is to play on the beach.
Janet Hetherington is a freelance writer and cartoonist. Her graphic collection of humorous supernatural dating horror stories, Eternally Yours: Illustrated Stories of Eternal Romance, is available for option. Janet shares a studio in Ottawa, Canada with artist Ronn Sutton and a ginger cat, Heidi.
