Zombies Ruin Everything

This article serves as something of a sequel to my 2012 article 5 Properties that Should Never be Made into Movies. Or maybe its Bizarro brother.

We’re all fans of those things that will never be made into movies. As great as it is to know Hollywood isn’t going to pillage some of our favorite things because they’re too obscure or the budget would be huge, there are some things that would just be cool if they could just nail it.

But alas, for one reason of another, it just doesn’t seem likely for the following entries. Maybe its better this way. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

5. The Invisible Man

One of the greatest books since 8th grade, HG Wells’ classic is the proper Suspense/Sci-fi Hollywood doesn’t seem to know needs a movie. Did I mention I read this book in 8th grade?

While 2000’s Hollow Man had the sense to cast Kevin Bacon as the lead and seemed to know that if a guy could become invisible, he would most definitely be a pervert, it failed on every other level. Sure the 1932 film was great, but it was an hour long and we need an update on those effects! The Omen gets a remake, even though the film needed very little updating, yet this is left in the dark? Nay, I say.

Interview with a Vampire seems to be one of the greatest Victorian era settings to place emphasis on the humanity and the ability and while The Invisible man isn’t Horror, it’s dark tone should be followed accordingly. The story of a scientist that makes a serum that allows him to become invisible, then proceeds to lose his mind from being unable to turn back.

Who doesn’t love the idea of a penis you can’t see?

From petty crime to murder, the story of how Dr. Griffin went from respected scientist to disappeared lunatic is a fascinating one with the great motif about being too clever for your own good. Taking time to appreciate the physics of what it would actually be like to be invisible would be interest scientific theorists and casual fans all the same.

Except for the possibility that you would go blind due to light needing to reflect off of lenses and rods for you to see in the first place. Just leave that out.

4. Devil May Cry Reboot

Now look. I’m fully aware of how this reboot was seen by fans. The sales showed how original fans felt about it. They didn’t like it. When Capcom decided to reboot their beloved franchise, taking away many key trademarks of the four part video game series, they pissed off a lot of people.

But the game was good. It really was. I went to  a friend’s and beat it literally standing in the exact same spot for eight hours to destroy this thing, I kid you not. And if I did it then it’s good enough for you (…right?).

Corporations and Governments are all owned by the same demon masquerading as a man named Mundus. Taking a note from Little Nicky, an angel and demon have twins who are raised in secret by humans. These twins, Vergil and Dante, are the only ones able to defeat Mundus and they need to act quick because c’mon, this guy is a demon and you can’t let those guys run the world.

Yes, this world looks great. But not to live in.

The acting, the story, and tone all felt like they were just making a playable movie all around. Not like Metal Gear with their two hour cut scenes mind you, but with an ethereal setting that mixed Inception with Constantine. With ethereal settings and pounding electro-rock (Whatever), the majority of the story is about superpowered Dante getting his crap together to realize the world is worth saving and having the powers means you need to use them to do some good.

So yes, with great power comes great responsibility. Check out the concept art.

3. X-Factor

Here’s one out of left field. You’ve heard of X-Men, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and maybe even X-Force. Ryan Reynolds hasn’t,  but maybe you have.

If the X-Men are Autobots and the Brotherhood are Decepticons, X-Factor are the transformers that just don’t give a sheee.

While the series started in 1986, it’s had several reincarnations. Most recently, Multiple Man aka Jamie Madrox began a detective agency with some fellow mutant outcasts and thus, the new X-Factor was born. While Professor X and Magneto duke it out using the most powerful mutants in existence, Madrox and his crew use their abilities to solve murders and other mysteries. Basically the closest you and I would get to Xavier if we were mutants living in the Marvel U.

Though Wolverine is all about the espionage, a nice break with an X-Factor film would give the franchise a chance to stretch their character development to an extent that all out action films don’t usually allow. Much of the series focuses on how the characters’ powers affect their lives and it’s that uniqueness that made the series so engaging.

The X-Men films themselves have so many characters with vast abilities shoved into a two hour time span, we end up focusing on about four characters and the rest have a nice shot or two. In X-Factor, Jamie’s power of being able to duplicate himself and reabsorb his “dupes” make for some interesting subplots, as the duplicates have their own personalities and once, absorbed, the original Jamie doesn’t know what he’s done himself or what his clones have done. That, and he’s not even sure at times if he is the original Jamie.

If you’ve read previous posts of mine, you know I take issue with the X-Men films. Part of the reason is that unlike the Marvel Studios films, which aren’t perfect but have definitely set themselves up nicely, Fox has only set themselves up to feature everybody together or Wolverine in stand alone films. That being the case, there’s little room for guys like Madrox and his crew to star in their own feature.

Y’know seeing as how nothing tops world supremacy and heavy gay overtones.

Jamie gets gay enough on his own. Come to think of it, so do Shatterstar and Rictor.

2. Futurama

I know what you’re thinking. Maybe. It could be one of two things actually. One could be “They already did that!” Or perhaps just a resounding “No!”

Look, like the title implies- this would never happen. Especially not live action. Creator Matt Groening would never be up for it, the budget would be insane, and it would be hard for people to see anyone other than the voice actors on the show portraying their roles.

But just think for a moment how great it could be. An animated feature preferably with a bigger budget or heck, if they were up for it, live action even. With Spaceballs being an all-time classic and Guardians of the Galaxy just hitting the 700 million dollar mark worldwide, Futurama’s satirical comedy in a Sci-fi setting could be awesome.

And I would need Robot Devil to make an appearance.

You’re telling me the idea of Fry, Bender, and Leela on their celestial misadventures, planet hopping, time traveling, and other shenanigans doesn’t tickle your fancy? Everybody loves shenanigans, c’mon. The animation is already great, with much emphasis put on the spectacular color palette of their oversized universe, so putting that into a “real world” setting would be, at the very least, enthralling to lose yourself in for an hour and forty minutes. Notice my entire tone for this entry is defensive. I can’t help it, I think I’m just ready for this one to be dismissed as soon as it’s been read.

It could be terrible- but it could be a classic. Tintin got his due, dammit!

1. At the Mountains of Madness

John Carpenter’s The Thing. Alien. Prometheus. Alien Versus Predator (BLECH).

We’ve seen several movies that took from this story, but we need to see the actual story. We know the drill; a team of researchers go to an isolated area to seek out an amazing new discovery or to find the team that went looking to make a discovery. But when they reach their destination, the horrors that await them couldn’t have been predicted and to die might be better than survive the madness they’ve become entrenched in.

First appearing in 1928’s “Call of Cthulhu” by none other than HP Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness is considered by many to be the defining Cthulhu tale of isolation and madness. And the guy doesn’t even make a physical appearance! While monsters like Godzilla and King Kong have got their spot in permanent pop history, it’d be nice to see the guy that could never be a good guy because he is the bad guy.

Just imagine- a slow and steady, creepy ride into evil as visions and living nightmares plague each character with the enough tension to make you break a sweat in anticipation. New sounds and an eerie score could be created to really put you in the mood. A mood of insanity.

But not THIS Insanity, because it’s retarded.

And while Guillermo del Toro has attempted to make this more than once, the budget and R-rating it would need to do the story justice just don’t seem like good bedfellows. Maybe one day we’ll get something to do the dark one justice but for now we’ve got to go with the watered down versions.

Yes, we all love The Thing but do you know Cthulhu? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

This entry was posted on 10/17/2014 at 12:07 am and is filed under Top 5 Lists with tags Adaptions, dmc, futurama, movies, movies that need sequels, Multiple Man. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.