On the eve of San Diego Comic-Con International, where more than 120,000 pop culture devotees are expected to gather, The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit and Matthew Belloni assembled an all-star squadron -- Eric Gitter of Oni Press (publisher of "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World"); writer/executive producer David Goyer ("The Dark Knight," ABC's fall series "Flash Forward"); filmmaker Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko," the upcoming "The Box"); influential comics writer Grant Morrison ("Batman and Robin"); DC Comics senior vp Gregory Noveck; and writer-director Brian Taylor ("Crank," "Jonah Hex") -- to debate who in Hollywood actually understands their work and how geeks in power are a little bit like Hitler.
The Hollywood Reporter: With comic book movies now the norm, the geeks have won the war. What's the next battle?
David Goyer: We become corrupt and a resistance movement starts and has to usurp us. (Laughter.) The thing that I watch with some bemusement is that now that the mainstream has co-opted comic books and geekdom, I can't tell you how many times I'm pitched an obscure, bizarre character, and they say, "We're going to turn this into our 'Iron Man,' " "We're going to turn this into our 'Dark Knight,' " "We're going to turn this into our 'Transformers.' " A lot of these people are jumping onto the bandwagon with absolutely no knowledge or appreciation of the genre.
Eric Gitter: I know that when I get pitched to "reverse-engineer" things through Oni and do it as a graphic novel and then take it out as a film, whenever I hear the phrase "This would be a perfect comic book," it's always from someone who has never read a comic book.
Richard Kelly: If we are going to keep this movement alive, or keep this genre elevated, we must keep generating new ideas. Because there is always going to be this reservoir of existing material -- some of it good, some of it not so good -- but it's all about what the next original idea is.
Mine is to bring food with you.
I always do that. and while in the beginning of the day it’s heavy as hell, it’s SO worth it.
Posted by: antioxidant | December 13, 2009 at 11:43 PM