Joining the long list of recent remakes and reboots, Variety is reporting Fox has decided to move forward with plans to make a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film. Normally, I would be weary of a reboot of a film that was released so recently, but in this case, I’m all for it. Just give me something to help remove the bad memories I have from the disastrous 2003 Sean Connery movie, a film that, consequentially, would serve as Connery’s last live action feature.
“League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” has always been a property full of potential. The series features a group of legendary Victorian-era literary heroes joining forces to combat evil. Created in 1999 by legendary comic writer Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), the League battled Moriarty (sworn enemy of Sherlock Holmes), aliens from “War of the Worlds,” and experienced the fall of the Big Brother government (from “Nineteen Eighty Four”). As with previous adaptations of Alan Moore’s books, the 2003 movie failed to capture what makes the source material unique and compelling. With Sean Connery in the twilight of his career, the original film was a generic action/adventure movie. Largely ignored by moviegoers, the film is viewed as a failure even though it did manage to more than double its $78 million budget bringing in $179.2 million worldwide in 2003.
I imagine Fox has grand visions of this becoming a franchise similar to Marvel’s The Avengers. As is commonplace in today’s film industry, every studio is interested in building shared universes. With “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, it’s obvious how a successful film could spawn spinoffs and sequels.
All of this is pure speculation at this point, as there aren’t any writers or a director attached. We should expect to hear more about League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the coming months.
