Friday, February 5, 2010
A winning trailer for The Losers
When I went to see Mel Gibson’s new movie, Edge of Darkness last weekend (it sucked, don’t bother), the best part of the entire experience was seeing the first trailer for The Losers, an adaptation of the cult comic series from 2003-06 by writer Andy Diggle and illustrator Jock (yep, just one name). It’s one of my favorite comics of the 2000s, and is basically a cooler version of The A-Team crossed with Ocean’s Eleven. It follows a team of special-ops badasses (played by a solid cast including Jeffrey Dean Morgan of Watchmen, Zoe Saldana from Avatar and Star Trek and Idris Elba from The Wire) who are betrayed and left for dead by their handler, Max (Jason Patric), and enact an elaborate revenge plot that involves shooting things, blowing stuff up stealing trucks with helicopters.
The Losers is a pretty great comic, and the movie looks like it’s a lot of fun. My only gripe with the trailer is that it gives away one of the coolest moments in the short-lived series (despite critical acclaim, the book never sold particularly well, and was cancelled after 32 issues, though the entire series is collected in five graphic novels that tell a complete story), the gag where Chris Evans, playing the team’s tech geek/smartass, “shoots” some guards with the help of the squad’s sniper.
I’ve been quietly anticipating the movie version of The Losers since I heard it was being adapted, and it looks like it was worth the wait. April 9 can’t come fast enough.
One quick little thing before I go: Canadian screenwriter Terri Tatchell, who was just nominated for an Oscar for co-writing District 9, has revealed that her next gig is once again adapting a cool-looking short film into a feature (District 9 expanded director Neill Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg short), this time a short called Terminus, about a guy being followed around by a big stone creature whose presence begins to drive him insane. The short, which is below, is pretty damned crazy (and also pretty cool), though I have no idea how this will be expanded into a feature-length movie. But given how much I loved District 9, I’m fairly confident the full-length version of Terminus will, if nothing else, be unlike anything I’ve seen before.
¶ 10:25 AM
The Losers is a pretty great comic, and the movie looks like it’s a lot of fun. My only gripe with the trailer is that it gives away one of the coolest moments in the short-lived series (despite critical acclaim, the book never sold particularly well, and was cancelled after 32 issues, though the entire series is collected in five graphic novels that tell a complete story), the gag where Chris Evans, playing the team’s tech geek/smartass, “shoots” some guards with the help of the squad’s sniper.
I’ve been quietly anticipating the movie version of The Losers since I heard it was being adapted, and it looks like it was worth the wait. April 9 can’t come fast enough.
One quick little thing before I go: Canadian screenwriter Terri Tatchell, who was just nominated for an Oscar for co-writing District 9, has revealed that her next gig is once again adapting a cool-looking short film into a feature (District 9 expanded director Neill Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg short), this time a short called Terminus, about a guy being followed around by a big stone creature whose presence begins to drive him insane. The short, which is below, is pretty damned crazy (and also pretty cool), though I have no idea how this will be expanded into a feature-length movie. But given how much I loved District 9, I’m fairly confident the full-length version of Terminus will, if nothing else, be unlike anything I’ve seen before.
¶ 10:25 AM
