Gorgeous Paul Gulacy cover from a recent JONAH HEX issue. Such a great comic deserves far better than it got from Hollywood.
Terrific article here about exactly WHY the Jonah Hex movie sucked so terribly: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com/what-hollywood-can-learn-from-jonah-hex-reuters
As a huge fan of the ongoing comic series (and the original seventies series) I was pretty bummed to see the movie version go so apallingly off the rails into camp action bullsh*t territory. This article delves into some of the reasons why things went so wrong, and points out some great rules for movie producers to live by. I especially like this passage:
DC's black-and-white collection of the original JONAH HEX run...weird western tales at their best. Forget the movie and read this instead.
– NOT EVERY COMIC NEEDS TO BE MOVIE.
The movie version of “Hex” should have been rated R, made like a relatively cheap spaghetti Western instead of a PG-13 exercise with a budget said to have climbed to $50 million-$60 million, including reshoots.
If Warners didn’t want to commit to a more down-and-dirty version, it shouldn’t have made the movie. In fact, what “Hex” should have been, and still could be, is a limited TV series on HBO, FX or TNT. It would have been about a bounty hunter who is barely better than the men he hunts but who occasionally shows a spark of humanity.
Or maybe such a flop-tacular movie is a blessing in disguise…maybe every bad comic-book movie only reminds us of the ancient truth that THE BOOK IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN THE MOVIE.
I, for one, am glad the failure of the Jonah Hex movie won’t effect the ongoing comic book series. I’ll take a good series over a good movie anyday.
Ride on, Jonah!
Peace,
John
Supply your own movie joke here...
Too bad the Jonah Hex movie sucks (not seen it yet) but on the other hand the Solomon Kane movie which I have seen is excellent. For some strange reason, it’s not getting a U.S. theatrical release even though it’s grossed $17 million already in the UK alone? I’m going to support this movie as much as I can and I think everyone else should should do the same thing.
http://www.thecimmerian.com/solomon-kane-on-dvd/
I’ve been anticipating SOLOMON KANE. Too bad it’s not being considered “worthy” of theatrical release. That doesn’t bode well for the movie. However, I will definitely watch it on DVD…I hope I share your opinion of its quality. So far it seems like the ONLY Robert E. Howard movie to EVER do any of his creations justice was John Milius’ CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Then, of course, they had to dumb down the franchise with the travesty that was the sequel (Conan the Destroyer), which I think sat the tone for all the absolutely horrible Howard adaptations to follow. I hope KANE breaks that cinematic curse….I’ll definitely blog about it once I’ve had a chance to see it.
Cheers!
John
Great, awesome.