Teasing the Spirit
By Craig Kennedy - April 19th, 2008; 4:24 pm
Scarlett Johansson in The Spirit
MTV has the teaser trailer for Frank Miller’s The Spirit based on Will Eisner’s masked comic book detective from the 1940s. It’s odd hearing Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Untouchables used on the soundtrack, but I guess it works.
The film stars Gabriel Macht as Denny Colt / The Spirit, Samuel L. Jackson as his archnemesis The Octopus, Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss, Eva Mendes as Sand Saref, Jamie King as Lorelei Rox and Paz Vega as Plaster of Paris.
The Spirit is on his way January 2009.
Filed under: Upcoming
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Between this and Valkyrie, are the doldrums of January and February changing into a more viable time of the year or does this just mean those movies suck?
Clearly Miller is trying to use the style of Rodriguez’s live action Sin City to accomplish what the live-action version of Daredevil failed so miserably to communicate: a very flesh-and-blood pulp hero defender of the city existing in a stylized noir world. This is what Miller created with his rendition of Daredevil back in the day and what Mark Stephen Johnson failed so painfully to convey in that film.
I don’t know if transmorgrifying that identity onto Eisner’s character works or not, but visually its far more satisfying so far that anything else I’ve seen for late 2008/early 2009, so who knows?
All the same, my expectations are really low.
This is a different story from Valkyrie, they’re giving it a similar Sin City/Sky Captain release date.
I guess now we’ll see if that Sin City co-directorhood was something more than a flattering gesture.
Man I wish this Spirit didn’t wear Chucks. Not only does it not seem true to the character … it feels like Miller is stealing from himself and the Dwight-wardrobe from “Sin City.”
You’re right, Jeff, about this being a very different story from Valkyrie. As Sartre once described it, my tongue-in-cheek take was merely “a blind and magical attempt to simplify situations that are too complex.”
What I hope re: Valkyrie is that it’s a good movie that the studio couldn’t figure out how to market. I’m a believer that gems can be found anywhere, and that’s why I don’t necessarily discount the movie based on the release date changes, like so many have been so happy to do.
That’s my hope for Valkyrie as well. The “hard-to-sell” problem often coincides with a surprisingly unique and commendable film. A thriller with unsuccessful German protagonists faces several hurdles with most moviegoers at the outset.
Yes.
That said, Bryan Singer movies that I’ve seen have never had a problem with being too oblique or unsellable. He’s a slick commercial director and this should have been up his alley, so to speak.
I’m hoping that Valkyrie will be more a return to form for Singer and the material is a little too complicated for the pinheads in the marketing department, as is often the case at the studios.
At the very least, it probably won’t be carrying the baggage that dragged down Superman Returns.
As to the earlier comment, I’m giving Frank Miller the benefit of the doubt on directing for the moment but I’m just not sure what to expect of him bringing such an old character to life. On one hand, it could be really cool, on the other there’s Dick Tracy.
I’ve said this with Craig before, but the truth is I’m always pleased by the presence of films during certain unconventional times of the year, the reasons for those release dates notwithstanding. I want more Zodiacs in early March. Heck, even though I disliked the film quite a bit, at least Cloverfield was an “event film” right in the middle of January.
I definitely don’t mind them spreading the movies around a bit. I think Hollywood has its head way up its own ass over release schedules as it is. There may be some kind of hard science dictating the Winter glut that currently exists but the truth of the matter is that they’re currently cramming too many movies into too narrow of a window and it’s sheer idiocy.
Hopefully some desperate exec will finally figure out that audiences will seek out good movies regardless of when they’re released and that no I know has ever had a calender dictating when they will and won’t go see a movie.