Don Murphy, Hollywood producer behind films such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, and Transformers has a few choice words for comic book master scribe Alan Moore. Both From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were films based on Alan Moore comics.
From AV Club:
Alan Moore is a hypocrite and a liar.
–He took a million dollars from Fox for League- he did not HAVE to do so
–He claims that he never saw League so why does he get to comment on the merits of it? YOU can say what you want to- but he never saw it
–He has made over $3 million dollars on the increased sales of the Watchmen hardcover due to the film- he isn’t returning that money
–He sold the rights to Watchmen in 1988
–He attacked V for Vendetta back when it came out- after he had sold those rights
He is an old man who smokes too much hash and prays to a lizard god. Don’t buy his bullshit.
I nearly spit hot tea all over my monitor when I read that last line.
Murphy does have a point. Moore has made a massive amount of money from the movies he supposedly hates so much. Movies he claims he’s never watched.
Photo by Craig Grobler.
EclipsespilcE
/ February 18, 2009Man, I KNEW I would eventually find out why I hate Alan Moore. Shame…I really liked Watchmen, and his run on Swamp thing.
Still, total friggin’ douchebag.
I’m glad his bi-sexual wives ditched his ass to go eat carpet alone. Keep strokin’ it, Al. Don’t stop ’till it spits in yer eye.
Schooly
/ February 18, 2009Yeah, Moore is a perverted retard. I’ve never understood why so many people think he’s a genius.
Rick
/ February 19, 2009What I don’t understand about Alan Moore is that he seems offended when someone takes something he created and makes it into a movie, yet he routinely takes the creations of others and turns them into comic book characters.
Steve
/ February 19, 2009Alan Moore is an interesting combination of a brilliant writer and an utterly shit-crazy lunatic. I think it is fair to call him a genius — Watchmen, From Hell, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Killing Joke, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” I also think it’s fair to say he’s a self-consciously eccentric weirdo who just needs to get over the fact that he writes comic books for a living. There’s no shame in it, especially when you’re as good at it as he is.
And he should just relax about people making movies out of his stories. Lots of successful writers have to deal with shitty adaptations of their work. Some object even when it turns out to be a great film — Ken Kesey famously boasted that he had never seen or wanted to see the film of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It probably doesn’t help that every film based on an Alan Moore comic, with the lone exception of the V for Vendetta movie, has been awful. Why would the guy expect Watchmen to be any better?
Rick
/ February 19, 2009I guess I’d feel differently about Alan Moore’s beef with his properties being turned into motion pictures if any of his characters were purely his creations. A lot of them are not. For instance, he took H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain character and turned him into an opium addict in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He then has a problem with the movie when Quatermain was more like the original character.
And just to be clear, I had to look up who wrote King Solomon’s Mines.
Wasn’t From Hell an OK movie? I don’t remember.
I think Watchmen is going to be good because it seems as though it is truly an adaptation of the movie. The level of detail is ridiculous. Also, if Zack Snyder does with Watchmen what he did with 300, I think everything will be OK.
Steve
/ February 20, 2009From Hell was an okay movie, I guess, but the comic was brilliant. With such amazing source material, the film could have been so much more. And there are lots of parallels between From Hell and Watchmen — both insanely detailed, intricate stories that deal with big themes in very serious and literate ways. Seeing how From Hell was reduced into a so-so supernatural detective/conspiracy story for the movie, I can see why Moore would expect the Watchman film to suck.
Rick
/ February 20, 2009But Moore claims to have never seen these movies that he hates so much. How does he know if they are as bad as he says they are?
Leda
/ March 6, 2009“For instance, he took H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain character and turned him into an opium addict in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He then has a problem with the movie when Quatermain was more like the original character.”
There’s that, which is bad enough, and “Lost Girls”, which is even worse. The man took three much-loved characters from KIDS’ classic literature and dropped them into what is basically a work of scat porn, paedophilia, rape and bondage. Would Carroll, Baum and Barrie have been happy about this garbage, had they known? Something makes me doubt it.
I have less than no respect for Moore.
Anonymous
/ September 9, 2009his issue is with marketing values……
Sega
/ September 30, 2009I was in a very snooty philosophy class once, willing to tolerate the people who were there mainly due to a genuine interest to learn something. After the very snooty professor laid out the structure of several famous philosophers, my apparently dead on WTF look got me a very good piece of advice: respect the knowledge, not the medium. Due to movies like V is for Vendetta and prior to that, Constantine, I was introduced to ideas and metaphors I would not have otherwise likely discovered in his work’s original form. Say what you like about mass media, but even V knows how to use it properly, and therefore Moore as well. I don’t care what he thinks of the movies I liked, because I was able to use them for my purposes. He can scream and jump up and down all he likes. I’ve got no scary trousers at all. I’m probably taller, too, when it’s all said and done. Doesn’t mean I don’t get a huge amount from his musings on youtube. Credit where due. Don’t idolize the medium. Appreciate, but don’t feel obligated to keep your head in the sand if something about the propagation of his ideas reached your corner of the earth to good purpose. End of snooty diatribe. Aren’t you so glad you didn’t take that class and come out writing this drivel.