Movies that were supposed to launch franchises (but didn’t): The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

https://lebeauleblog.com/2020/03/17/movies-that-were-supposed-to-launch-franchises-but-didnt-the-league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen/

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was based on an acclaimed series by legendary comic book scribe Alan Moore. It starred Sean Connery, one of the biggest movie stars in the world and was directed by the guy who launched the Blade series. In the days before Marvel made superheroes a dominant force at the box office, The League seemed like a safe bet for a profitable film series. Instead, it sent its star and director into retirement.

Pre-MCU
Try to remember a time before the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before Iron Man and the Avengers made comic book heroes mainstream entertainment. Hollywood studios knew there was money to be made in adapting comic books to the big screen. But they hadn’t quite figured out the formula.

Following the success of Batman for examples, studio heads green-lit a bunch of movies featuring pulp heroes they assumed audiences would flock to see. But it turns out The Shadow and The Phantom didn’t have the same appeal as The Dark Knight.

In the early 21st century, there were signs of the Marvel tsunami to come. The X-men and Spider-man were starring in hit movie franchises. This started a frenzy that would result in movies featuring the Punisher, Ghost Rider, Daredevil and the Fantastic Four. While some of those movies did okay box office, they proved that Marvel didn’t guarantee box office success.

Marvel wasn’t the only comic book publisher in town. But their main rival, DC Comics, was owned by Warner Brothers. The rights to Superman and Batman weren’t for sale. So studios looking for an alternative to Marvel turned to other comics for inspiration. Audiences may not have realized that movies like Ghost World and The Road to Perdition were based on comic books, but they were.

Comic Book Origin Story
One such comic book was The League of Extraordinary Gentleman which was written by Alan Moore. Moore is a comic book superstar. He’s responsible for several classic stories including The Watchmen. By this point in his career, Moore was at odds with both major comic book publishers. He felt both DC and Marvel had done him wrong and he vowed never to work for either one again.

In 1999, Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill created The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for Wildstorm Comics (which was eventually bought by DC). The book re-imagined characters from the Victorian era as kind of a proto-Justice League. The cast included Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mr. Hyde and the invisible man.

The book was steeped in literary references. It was dark, cheeky and very, very British. In short, it wasn’t the sort of thing that would translate well into a big-budget Hollywood movie. But 20th Century Fox decided to give it a try anyway.

The Studio Treatment
Producer Don Murphy bought the rights to two Alan Moore stories. From Hell made The League look like the Super-Friends by comparison. So it’s probably not surprising that Murphy was more excited about adapting the latter. Murphy got right to work developing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen before the source material had even been published.

You can give Murphy credit for realizing that the League was not like other properties. He wanted to leave as much of the British spirit in tact as Fox would allow. To that end, he hired British comic book scribe James Robinson to write the script.

Robinson had was best known for the extremely British Starman series published by DC Comics in the nineties. He’d also written the scripts for a few low-budget movies. Robinson was a pretty big deal in the world of comics, but as a screenwriter he was a novice. Fox began giving him notes early on which included relocating the movie to America.

Pre-9/11, the plot of the movie would have seen the heroes traveling to turn-of-the-century New York to prevent the release of a flesh-eating virus. That was changed for obvious reasons.

With the setting changed to Venice, Fox insisted on Americanizing the movie some other way. Tom Sawyer was added to the League in an effort to appeal to American audiences. According to Robinson, “I think 20th Century Fox felt more comfortable making a movie that was very expensive knowing that there was a young American character.”

Assembling the League
Murphy’s pick to direct The League was English director Stephen Norrington. On paper, that makes perfect sense. Murphy wanted to keep things British despite the Mark Twain infusion. Norrington was a Brit and his previous film was the first movie in the Blade series. That seemed like relevant experience to launch a comics-based film franchise.

Unfortunately, Norrington would soon be in over his head. The budget for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was nearly twice what it cost to make Blade. Reports from the set indicated that the director moved slowly which angered the movie’s leading man.