Frank Miller to write, direct THE SPIRIT
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While a big announcement on the identity of the director for the long-planned SPIRIT movie had been teased for San Diego, The Hollywood Reporter has let the cat out of the bag: It’s Frank Miller:
More than four decades after Will Eisner created him, “The Spirit” — one of the most influential comics of all time — is coming to the big screen. The movie will be adapted and directed by Frank Miller, who will be on hand for the public announcement of the project Saturday at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Odd Lot Entertainment’s Deborah Del Prete and Gigi Pritzker will co-finance and produce “The Spirit.” Also producing is Batfilm Prods.’ Michael Uslan. Batfilm co-founder Benjamin Melniker will executive produce. Odd Lot’s Linda McDonough and Batfilm’s FJ DeSanto will co-produce. Uslan said Miller was the ideal choice for the project. “What makes Frank’s involvement with ‘The Spirit’ particularly poignant was his special relationship with Will Eisner, captured last year in the book ‘Eisner-Miller,’ ” he said. “You have two of the medium’s greatest storytellers of sequential art and cinematic comics discussing the compelling and controversial art form.”
In words of a single syllable: whoa.
Miller, of course, was the co-director his the well-received SIN CITY, based on his graphic novel series. THE SPIRIT has long been in development–Michael Uslan has been connected with it for years and years — and was already the subject of a tv movie in 1987 starring Sam Jones.
“I intend to be extremely faithful to the heart and soul of the material, but it won’t be nostalgic. It will be much scarier than people expect,” Miller told Variety.
Miller said he’s putting together a treatment that consists in large part of panels from the “Spirit” strip. Shooting is expected to start in late spring.
San Diego’s SPIRIT panel will be held Saturday at 2:45 in Hall H.
07/19/06 at 10:08 am
FADE IN:
It’s a city. It’s dark. It’s RAINING. A CROOK runs away from u and into a DIRTY ALLEY. He TRIPS over a GARBAGE CAN. Go CLOSE on him, gon on his FACE. It’S BLOODIED. He’s SCARED. Gets up. CRAWLS AWAY.
We stay in that POV for a BEAT.
Then, in the faded YELLOW LIGHT of a STREET LANTERN: A SHADOW
A MAN.
WE PULL OUT to REVEAL: A MAN in a TRENCHCOAT. The crook’s BLOOD is on it, SPLATTERS like a RORSCHACH TEST PATTERN. A FEDORA HAT put DEEP INTO HIS FACE. He CLINCHES his LEATHER-GLOVED FISTS.
CUT TO
A CLOSE-UP of the MAN’S FACE. In the SHADOWS of the HAT we see a MASK. It’s RIPPED APART, but the man doesn’t notice it. This is THE SPIRIT.
THE SPIRIT:
DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM, PUNK?
(BEAT)
I’M THE GODDAMN’ SPIRIT!
07/19/06 at 10:41 am
[…] Frank Miller will write and direct Will Eisner’s The Spirit! […]
07/19/06 at 11:54 am
I was kinda hoping for the Coen brothers.
07/19/06 at 12:24 pm
I fear for Ellen Dolan and P’Gell!
http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060207.html
And what happened to Jeph Loeb oon this project?
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=003633
07/19/06 at 12:33 pm
For the love of all things Eisner…
Please, God, no.
Miller already trashed Daredevil and Batman, dragging both once-noble heroes permanently into the gutter of repugnant hyperviolence. Don’t let him ruin The Spirit — one of the comic medium’s greatest creations — too.
07/19/06 at 2:33 pm
“It will be much scarier than people expect”
Forget romance, adventure, humor, and irony: The Spirit is all about the scary.
Ugh.
07/19/06 at 2:36 pm
[…] [via] […]
07/19/06 at 7:05 pm
we’ll probably be able to hold a drinking game for how many female characters will be beaten up, bitch-slapped etc.
07/19/06 at 7:22 pm
I’m actually looking forward to this. Even All Star Batman is about some sort of irony. The Spirit is the one superhero who never took his adventures completely seriously [unlike, say, Civil War which believes its events are Les Mis in suits], and Miller’s DKR and Sin City are on the same plane [Miller also knew Eisner very well, and thus better than any director knows the character inside and out. The Spirit’s adventures WERE dark at its core, much like Batman’s early adventures, but the darkness had an odd gothic exotisism to it. I’m looking forward…]
I’m absolutely looking forward to this. Sin City, much like DKR is unlike anything that came before, while its peers feed off [and continue to feed off] aesthetic cliche. I’m psyched.
…but what are they going to do about Ebony though…hmm…
07/19/06 at 10:45 pm
Frank Miller is in a pretty unique position to bring Will Eisner’s The Spirit to the big screen — as a friend to Eisner; as a fan inspired in his own work by The Spirit; and as a new director with a smash hit (Sin City) under his belt (not to mention his own unargued skills in the comics medium). I’m really looking forward to this.
07/19/06 at 11:46 pm
Huh. Not what I was expecting.
Or hoping for, really. I was really pulling for Brad Bird.
I’ll have to wait and see.
07/20/06 at 1:09 am
Brad Bird would’ve been cool, considering he alredy homaged The Spirit in The Incredibles.
(Where Mr. Incredible has dinner with Mirage and is in his suit with his mask still on? Yeah. It wasn’t like he NEEDED to wear it–Mirage alreay knew who he was. Bird was being funny.)
07/20/06 at 11:28 am
Dude, before that, Bird openly homaged The Spirit in “The Iron Giant,” in which the character is mentioned by name and the cover of a comic is even shown. Spirit, along with Superman, is one of the characters that young Hogarth introduces the Giant to when teaching him about heroism.
07/22/06 at 3:25 am
[…] Frank Miller. The Spirit. Frank Miller… directing The Spirit. […]
11/4/06 at 10:00 pm
Buon luogo, congratulazioni, il mio amico!
05/31/07 at 11:07 am
MSN I NIIPET
MSN
05/31/07 at 11:07 am
MSN I NIIPET
MSN
07/5/07 at 1:23 am
I hope Miller is looking at the current DC Spirit comic book series by Darwyn Cooke, it’s wonderful. Exciting, humorous, romantic, wonderfully paced….inspired! It also stays true to the storytelling of Eisner in the sense that it’s not really so much “about” The Spirit, as it is about the characters who are central to each story. I repeat…story….story….story!
09/29/07 at 9:41 pm
I have long been a fan of both Eisner and Miller and when I learned that Miller was directing, I got really jazzed. I believe that with the reverence that Frank has for Mr. Eisner, we will get a really entertaining movie. Despite being totally turned off by All-Star Batman, I think Miller will hew closer to what The Spirit is all about. Batman is a character who has experienced many interpretations over almost seventy years, but The Spirit is inherently Eisner and Frank respects Eisner. Give Frank the benefit of the doubt here.