'Will Eisner's The Spirit' movie directed by Frank Miller

There's a lot that's been written about the soon-to-be-released feature film of Will Eisner's masked crime fighter. A lot of it not good.

The one thing that does concern me about Frank Miller's feature film is that much was made in the early days of production of it being officially released as "Will Eisner's The Spirit". It seems, four days out from it's general release, that "Will Eisner" has been removed from the film's title. Posters, web sites, TV spots... all seem to simply promote "The Spirit".

... and before you naysayers hit me with the "But that's a good thing, this movie sucks and Eisner's name is best kept off it" argument...

On one of our many phone conversations about John Law, Will said to me (concerning quality vs quantity): "It's better to have halitosis breath than no breath at all."

So, I'm thinking that Will would be tickled by this new movie and the flap that it's causing. He'd be understanding of the fresh take and the decisions made in adapting his character to the big screen. Hey, he'd been down the movie-making road several times before (one TV pilot with Sam Jones; one stalled animated feature film with Brad Bird attached etc), so I'm sure he'd think it was a minor miracle (ha!) that the movie has been completed at all.

I'm just a bit miffed that his name isn't part of the title.


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1 comments:

  1. El Vox August 10, 2009 at 2:57 AM

    I'd have to agree. It's not like other writers haven't had to contend with something made from their books going astray: Stephen King, Alan Moore or whatever writer you want to site. King just said: if they want the real deal read the book. That's about the best advice I can see as well. Still, if I were a writer and someone wanted to buy the rights for a film, heck yeah, I take it, and be laughing all the way to the bank, but I'd want them to still give me credit for my own creation, good or bad.