by The Matt
Wanted
Number of Film-Adaptation Attempts Thus Far: 1
You’re probably thinking: “Wait a minute, wasn’t Wanted a financially successful, popular movie that most people liked for its exciting action sequences, memorable bullet-curving mechanic, and that one fleeting shot of Angelina Jolie’s ass?” You’d be 100% correct in asking that question, my faithful readers. Now sit down and shut up while I explain myself.
While the cinematic Wanted concerned itself with a fraternity of assassins and, bullet-curving aside, took place more or less in our reality, the comic book the film was supposedly based on was as different from our daily grind as a kitten is to a Bengal tiger.
Not pictured: Anything close to resembling reality.
Published in 2003, Mark Millar’s Wanted was about something even less family friendly than a secret society of assassins: super villains! Unlike the Wesley Gibson in the movie, his comic book forefather was the heir apparent to a member of a cabal of super villains, super powers and all, who secretly defeated all the world’s super heroes decades ago and have been ruling the planet ever since. Once inducted into their order, Wesley, unlike James McAvoy’s affable movie slacker, takes a sick, brutal, wish-fulfillment approach to abusing his new-found status.
Every crime you’ve ever wanted to commit, every atrocity you’ve ever dreamed of, Wesley participates in. Gibson walks into a police station, murders every cop on duty aside from one female officer, whom he threatens to rape. Wanted asks the question: “What would you do if you could live a life free of consequences?”
Outlook For The Future: Could Go Either Way
A Wanted sequel as been in the planning ever since studio heads saw the box office figures for the first movie’s opening weekend, with plans to somehow bring back Jolie’s deceased Fox character. Movie audiences have shorter attention spans that ever these days, so why not let the project sit for a few more years and come back with a fresher, more faithful approach to the property? Just call it Mark Millar’s Wanted, in the vein of Frank Miller’s 300, drop the action movie take and go all out for a pure superhero movie with costumes, super powers, and enough special effects to blow the roof off your local movie theater. I highly doubt any studio out there has the guts to sign off on a tale this dark but… fingers crossed!
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K…
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