Writer Garth Ennis has had a long successful career in comics, but not so much luck in seeing his work come to life in Hollywood. Is that finally about to change?
Producer Neal Moritz, the craftsman behind simple-minded noisy destruction like STEALTH and xXx, has grabbed Ennis’ book THE BOYS for what will no doubt be a gratuitously violent take on the superhero genre. The story, so far filled with a high quotient of sodomy and mayhem, follows a covert CIA team of superpowered enforcers (including a dead ringer for Simon Pegg) who keep the secretly sordid superhero population under control by any brutal means necessary. (And with characters called Mother’s Milk, Wee Hughie and The Female of the Species, we are clearly reaching the end of the Cool Names list…)
While much of Ennis’ comic writing is dark and effective (I love his WWII stuff), THE BOYS tends to be pointlessly profane and juvenile… which I suppose makes it perfect material for the guy responsible for the I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER “series” and what is about to be four FAST AND THE FURIOUS flicks. That said, I will unquestionably be entertained (after all, Moritz also brought us TORQUE, a work of unrecognized genius).
Ennis’ series PREACHER, literally one of the greatest self-contained stories ever to grace comic pages, was in the works as an HBO series, but from what I’ve heard, we won’t be seeing it any time soon…
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