Slashfilm reports on a rumor of behind-the-scenes grumblings as the movie pitch for Mark Millar and Tony Harris’ War Heroes winds its way through Hollywood.
If the article is to be believed, some studio executives have noticed the new Image comic-as-film-proposal is similar in concept to Grunts, the 2006 miniseries by Shannon Denton and Keith Giffen. The wheels have been turning on the Grunts adaptation for a couple of years.
I’ve not read either comic, so I can’t speak directly to shared concepts, beyond that they’re both war comics that employ super-powered soldiers. Grunts is set in World War II, while War Heroes is in the near-future. The former has been described as “24 meets The X-Men,” and the latter as “Full Metal Jacket meets The X-Men.”
Of course, I’d wager about a third of high-concept pitches right now end with “meets The X-Men,” “meets The Dark Knight” and “meets Harry Potter.”
What’s more, it wouldn’t be the first — or 21st — time that movies with similar themes or subject have been developed, or released, at or around the same time: Valmont and Dangerous Liaisons, Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, Dante’s Peak and Volcano, Robin Hood and Prince of Thieves.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Of course… Robin Hood went straight to TV while Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves came out in the theaters. At least in the US.
I’ll bet the studios are more worried about a LXG-type lawsuit than releasing similar movies.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Curiously, though, Robin Hood was (arguably) the superior movie. It just didn’t have the star power to go up against Prince of Thieves.