We’ve only touched briefly on the big-screen adaptation of Viper Comics’ Villains which Universal Pictures has in the works, but today we’ve got a bit more on what can be expected of the movie.
Villains follow Nick Corrigan, 20-something dweeb who discovers his elderly neighbor used to be a major supervillain. When it comes time to ‘do the right thing’ and turn the bad guy in to police, Nick instead makes a darker choice, blackmailing the man into training him to become one of most badass supervillains the world has ever seen.
It’s quite an unusual take on the superhero/supervillain genre and (though I’ve never read the comic) it’s safe to say that a “protagonist” like Nick Corrigan is going to be hard for the average moviegoer to sympathize with. So which Hollywood filmmakers are good at making dark characters shine bright?
According to producer Sean Bailey, guys like Michael Mann (Public Enemies) or David Fincher (Fight Club):
“My personal ambition is to have it be operatic and epic. If Michael Mann or David Fincher were ever to go make one of these movies, what would that look like? That’s my hope for it. To be in that kind of world….If you look at any war movie or any crime movie, who the hero is, is solely a question of the point of view…So we wanted to look at the rise of a villain—why and how it happened. It’s got a different slant than you’ve seen.”
Hmmm… I like the way Bailey pitches the concept, ‘a look at the rise of a villain—why and how it happened.’ We all know what made a young man like Peter Parker become Spider-Man and fight for good, however, in post-Columbine/Virginia Tech era, don’t we owe to ourselves to confront the question of what makes young people go bad? If the filmmakers present Villains in that kind of social context, the film could be one interesting ‘comic book movie’ indeed.
Of course, there will be invetiable comparrisons to Matthew Vaughn’s (fantastic looking) adaptation of Kick-Ass, which tells the oppossing story of a young man who decides to become a superhero.
No word yet what Villains will focus on: Matt Jennison and Brent Strickland, the duo who wrote the stalled Wonder Woman movie, turned in a draft of the scipt to Universal recently, and are now at work on a rewrite, based on the studio’s notes.
For now, I will be keeping an eye on Villains to see how it ultimately develops. No word yet on a release date.
Source: MTV Splash Page
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