Fox Prepares Yet Another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Reboot

Fanghawk

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Fox Prepares Yet Another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Reboot

Roughly 12 years after the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film launched, 20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment have plans to reboot the franchise.

When we hear the phrase <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/league%20of%20extraordinary%20gentlemen?os=league+of+extraordinary+gentlemen>League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, we usually remember one of two things: The highly-imaginative comic book from <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/alan%20moore?os=alan+moore>Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career. It's a fantastic premise whichever example comes to mind, bringing fictional characters like Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Jekyll into a shared universe. So it comes as no surprise that 20th Century Fox is planning a reboot of the franchise, with John Davis producing through Davis Entertainment.

Originally released in 1999, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen united Mina Harker, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde as a special operations team working for M under British Intelligence. The film version loosely adapted the League's first adventure while adding characters like Dorian Grey and American action-hero Tom Sawyer to the mix. Fox originally had plans to produce an entire League franchise, but when the film's worldwide gross only reached $180 million they were quietly swept under the rug.

This isn't even Fox's first planned reboot. Back in 2013, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125843-League-of-Extraordinary-Gentlemen-Resurfaces-On-FOX>Green Lantern writer Michael Green attempted to restart League as a television series but Fox ended the project before casting began. This would be Fox's third League project in the past two decades.

While the League's film and television projects have languished until now, the comic book has become one of Moore and O'Neill's most successful works. Over the course of three volumes, a standalone graphic novel, and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/features/12743-Five-Favorite-Comics-of-2014.2>a spin-off series starring Captain Nemo's daughter, League has grown into a mammoth undertaking covering most of the 19th to 21st centuries. That said, it's safe to say Moore won't be supporting any other League projects. His opposition to adaptations <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115626-DC-Unveils-Watchmen-Prequels>is almost legendary at this point, and he was already one of the most-outspoken critics of the first League film.

Source: Variety

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Scrythe

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Fanghawk said:
...or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career.
That part has always confused me. Sean Connery has been in plenty of films objectively worse that League, and this is the one that had him retiring from acting?
 
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Scrythe said:
Fanghawk said:
...or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career.
That part has always confused me. Sean Connery has been in plenty of films objectively worse that League, and this is the one that had him retiring from acting?
The man doesn't have want for money. Probably hasn't since the sixties. And he probably honestly just read the room. Big and dumb seemed like it wasn't going away any time soon in 2003, and he was absolutely right. He probably just found his principles or ideas or even tastes didn't sync up with the new hollywood and Connery definitely made enough money to get out.
 

Thaluikhain

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Eh, can't be worse than last ti-, no I shouldn't tempt fate.

I really don't get the obsession with rebooting things people didn't like the last time. Surely that's a bit of a hint.
 

NLS

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Scrythe said:
Fanghawk said:
...or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career.
That part has always confused me. Sean Connery has been in plenty of films objectively worse that League, and this is the one that had him retiring from acting?
To be fair, it was his last movie role before officially retiring in 2006. It might not have caused him to end his career, but it wouldn't be wrong to say it was the end of his career.

As for the movie itself: I don't think it will have a hard time competing with the previous movie.
 

MonsterCrit

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Scrythe said:
Fanghawk said:
...or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career.
That part has always confused me. Sean Connery has been in plenty of films objectively worse that League, and this is the one that had him retiring from acting?
Well that and he has had some personal health problems. I also hear he turned down the role of gandalf in Lord of the Rings in favour of League..

Honestly, I don't see what the big prob with the original movie was, but then I never knew about the comics so I wen't into it with a clean slate.. Then again I never thouygh the SMB movie was that bad either.
 

Eclipse Dragon

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Scrythe said:
ObsidianJones said:
snip snip
NLS said:
snip snip snip
MonsterCrit said:
snip snip snip snip
Cracked had something to say about that in an article awhile back. Whether you trust Cracked to give you an accurate portrayal of what happened is entirely up to you, but here it is.

When most people watched this completely run-of-the-mill action flick in 2003, they said, "Well, that was dumb," and instantly forgot about it. Connery, on the other hand, went, "Fuck everything. Fuck this world. I'm out."

As I said, Cracked has covered before how Connery just quit movies after this one, which he only agreed to do because he was bitter over turning down a part called "Gandalf" in a movie about midgets or some shit. What we didn't mention was that he turned down that role entirely because he didn't understand the script, a decision that cost him $450 million dollars -- the guy could have his own tropical island nation today if he had just asked someone else, "Hey, is this Tolkien guy any good?" But then the money gods who had favored him for so many decades pitied him and gave him another chance: They also offered him a role in The Matrix, though he hasn't confirmed which one.

Once again Connery couldn't make heads or tails of it and turned it down, and once again the movie went on to make big bucks. Try to put yourself in his confused, profoundly stupid (remember his "women deserve to be punched" rant?) frame of mind right now: He has apparently been randomly choosing roles for his entire career without having any concept of what makes a good movie, and it's always worked out for him (Highlander II aside), but his mystical luck suddenly runs out. He's on his own now. Then a deeply, deeply ridiculous script called LXG is floated by his desk, and he doesn't know what the fuck it's about either ... so he goes, "Where do I shign, my friendsh?" He seriously thought this was the one that would make sunny Santa Conneria a reality.

It didn't work out that way, obviously, so he tossed his hairpiece into the fire and moved back to Scotland. I know the accusation that Sean Connery is a moron who only became a film legend through dumb luck is kinda heavy, so I'll just leave with this: Since his retirement, one of the only two voice acting roles he has seen fit to lend his wonderful accent to is a CGI cartoon about a skateboarding veterinarian grandpa. I imagine he was majorly pissed off when it didn't outgross every Pixar movie ever.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-movies-that-made-huge-stars-quit-acting-forever/
 

Dead Metal

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MonsterCrit said:
Scrythe said:
Fanghawk said:
...or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career.
That part has always confused me. Sean Connery has been in plenty of films objectively worse that League, and this is the one that had him retiring from acting?
Well that and he has had some personal health problems. I also hear he turned down the role of gandalf in Lord of the Rings in favour of League..

Honestly, I don't see what the big prob with the original movie was, but then I never knew about the comics so I wen't into it with a clean slate.. Then again I never thouygh the SMB movie was that bad either.
Oh no, he didn't turn down Gandalf for this, he turned down Gandalf because he thought the role was beneath him and that LOTR would fail, he didn't want his name to be tarnished by being in it.
Then LOTR turned out to be the be kind of a big deal and he was desperate to be part of something comparable, to rekindle his career and be taken serious again, so he chose to star in the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But that tanked and did him no favors, so he decided to quit the game all together.

I'm not too sure what to feel about this, on the one hand this could give us a film that's not only closer to the original comic one that's also much better, but it could also be an even greater disaster. While I like the original comic, I don't think its story is something that would appeal to a wide audience.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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When reading the title, I already thought "Here it comes, another Alan Moore statement about how Hollywood is a bunch of hacks." He might be right in many cases, too. They better handle this carefully, instead of the usual "rewrite-focus group-rewrite-executive meddling-hire new writer for final draft" method Hollywood has become a fan of in recent years.
ObsidianJones said:
Scrythe said:
Fanghawk said:
...or the surprisingly lackluster film that ended Sean Connery's career.
That part has always confused me. Sean Connery has been in plenty of films objectively worse that League, and this is the one that had him retiring from acting?
The man doesn't have want for money. Probably hasn't since the sixties. And he probably honestly just read the room. Big and dumb seemed like it wasn't going away any time soon in 2003, and he was absolutely right. He probably just found his principles or ideas or even tastes didn't sync up with the new hollywood and Connery definitely made enough money to get out.
NLS said:
To be fair, it was his last movie role before officially retiring in 2006. It might not have caused him to end his career, but it wouldn't be wrong to say it was the end of his career.

As for the movie itself: I don't think it will have a hard time competing with the previous movie.
Edit: just realized I got Ninja'd twice on this:

I believe Connery chose the role in League over Gandalf, thinking that the Lord of the Rings script he read wasn't great and League would be the big one. LotR had so many poor adaptations at the time that he, like many others, probably didn't see it taking off like it did.

I guess he figured after Leagues' failure it was time to hang up the towel. He had so many good (and so bad, it's good) films that I don't think it bothered him to much, but it is kinda sad a legendary actor retired right after a dud. I'll bet he's happy to be relaxing in retirement, though, while Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee had to run around in wizard robes across New Zealand for 3 more movies.
 

MetalGenocide

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*raises hand*
I liked LXG. Thought it was a really good and fun movie. Does that make me weird, or an individual with poor taste?
 

fix-the-spade

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MonsterCrit said:
Well that and he has had some personal health problems. I also hear he turned down the role of gandalf in Lord of the Rings in favour of League..
In hindsight that was probably a good move, it might have killed him and we'd have been denied Sir Ian McGandalf.

Still, it's a bit of bum note to end a career on, couldn't he have a cameo in Doctor Who or a James Bond film or something to make sure it's not his last credit? A conversation between him and Daniel Craig would be very cool (and make the fan theory that James Bond is a code name rather than an individual canon).
 

scotth266

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I honestly thought that League was a pretty good movie. Not triple-A tier or anything, but solid fun even though I didn't know jack shit about the property. The only bit that was confusing was the bit about Connery's character and African spiritualism (but once again, it's probably because I haven't read the books attached to it).
 

Parasondox

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Hey FOX, we already have Penny Dreadful so don't stress yourself out about that reboot there.
 

Callate

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Maybe we could actually get a book based on the comic, this time?

Look, I quite enjoyed the movie of Ella Enchanted, and I've known more than a few people who read the book first who curse it to the heavens, so I'm not going to say no one can enjoy "LXG". But it was a Big Dumb Movie that shoehorned in Tom Sawyer for fear that Americans couldn't appreciate a movie without an American hero, a car chase in Victorian London, and turned Mina from a woman with scars on her neck to something out of Bloodrayne.

The original "League" isn't Big and Dumb. It's gone through its share of author excesses in later installments, and seems to have become Moore's excuse to go, "Look! I can write in the style of 'x'! Isn't this fun?!" But the initial run was smart and quiet and often quite grim, and I'd really much prefer to see them give that a go.
 

Exterminas

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The irony in all this is that the original comics weren't all that popular when they first came out. As far as I understand this is the reason why there are just a handful of issues, even though the potential for a lot more is certainly there.
 

DoctorM

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Sean Connery did say LXG caused him to retire because CG had become so common place in films.
With all the green screening, he wasn't objectively able to tell if a movie was good or not while filming. (In this case not.)

...and not completely retired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a20oRLJ4v4s

(Wait, there's people that like Penny Dreadful? It's full on Dreadful.)
 

FalloutJack

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I deny this talk that Sean Connary was ended by a movie. More like, as some stated, he thought it was shit and wouldn't have anymore of it. Give the man a real role in something decent and he'll probably blow your mind once more.

OT: I wouldn't exactly call them extraodinary when they were pretty much crap, as many have said.
 

Smooth Operator

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thaluikhain said:
Eh, can't be worse than last ti-, no I shouldn't tempt fate.

I really don't get the obsession with rebooting things people didn't like the last time. Surely that's a bit of a hint.
Wouldn't that make it the perfect opportunity to reboot? Also being 12 years ago now this is a much much better idea then trying to outdo movies that are beloved, because you know that shit will always be followed by endless scorn no matter how good you make it.

But they do have a very high odds of failure, League being such an odd mishmash of other properties I say the first movie was surprisingly on point.
 

TallanKhan

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I am cautiously optimistic about this. I always loved the concept and would like to see this given a second chance. It's a shame in some ways that last time Fox didn't press forward and try to fix what they had, as they did have one thing that will be lost with a reboot, and that's a great cast. Writing and direction could have been sorted out with a decent sequel but hell, at least they are doing something.
 

Elementary - Dear Watson

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MetalGenocide said:
*raises hand*
I liked LXG. Thought it was a really good and fun movie. Does that make me weird, or an individual with poor taste?
Haha! I am the same! It's up there with Starship Troopers, Jurassic Park and Small Soldiers for me as being a go to movie for just enjoying. If I have had a bad week, or need cheering up with some mindless fun I use those! It helps that I really enjoy all four!