I was talking to
Jimmy Gownley at comic con. He is the creator, artist, and writer of Amelia Rules. We were talking about people making movies out of comic books. Hollywood has been coming to Comic Con for years looking to license properties. This year everyone was talking about how big Iron Man and The Dark Knight was.
During the conversation Jimmy used his best Hollywood producer's voice and said, "This is a great comic book, Can we make and omelet out of it?" he went on to say only in America do we insist to make a movie or TV show out of very other created work we can find. If it is a great comic let it be a great comic and make a movie out of something else.
I can see his point. Hollywood is not always good at being creative. It is often easier to cash in by leveraging someone else's work. What is even worse is that often Hollywood buys a story and totally ruins it trying to move it from one media to another. Jimmy is very invested in Amelia Rules and it would be hard for him to see someone else control it.
I heard
Christopher Dickey on NPR's
Talk of the Nation talking about the
south and the upcoming election. During the show Christopher Dickey told one of the callers he knows the south well, his father wrote
the novel Deliverance.
This statement made me think about the quote "Can you make an omelet out of it?" Even if people know this novel, much more people know this work because of the movie. I have never read Deliverance, but I would think about reading it now because I want to see how it relates to the movie.
In the end I think that moving a book or comic book to a movie is good the great deal of the time. Fans, film makers, and writers have to realize that the mediums are different from one another. You cannot expect to have the same experence with each. I still think it is worth moving art from one medium to another.
The next time I see Jimmy I will give him my idea for the Mary Violet Omelet.
Labels: comic book, content, hollywood, Jimmy Gownley
