A number of sources, including Deadline , are reporting that 20th Century Fox is rebooting The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen franchise. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was written by critically acclaimed graphic novel author Alan Moore in 1999. The League features classic literary characters, including Allan Quatermain and Henry Jekyll.
The first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen won the 2000 Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Graphic Narrative. The second volume was nominated for the same award in 2003. Around this time, the franchise was optioned to 20th Century Fox for a feature length film that would star Sean Connery.
Despite having the former James Bond on board, playing the dashing Allan Quatermain, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen completely flopped. Critics and the public panned the film. Rotten Tomatoes has the film at a 17 percent from critics, and 44 percent from the public. Most of the problems the critics had were that it strayed from Alan Moore’s original vision. New York City film critic Ethan Alter said it best.
“The League is a project that was doomed from the moment the studio threw out Alan Moore comic and decided that they knew better.”
Alan Moore himself thought the film was doomed from the start. He try to distance himself as much as possible from the film before the movie was released. He made no bones about not liking the direction the studio took with his original work. In an interview with Comic Book Resources back in 2005, he said as much.
“As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them, enough to keep them separate, take the option money, I could be assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably nave on my part.”
Now, over a decade after the original, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is back in development with 20th Century Fox. At the moment, it is thought to be a complete reboot of the series. It is to be overseen by Ira Napoliello and Matt Reilly. It is being produced by John Davis of Davis Entertainment. Davis Entertainment’s previous works include the original Predator , Chronicle , and Eragon .
The new movie comes after Fox failed to find a home for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen television show it was said to be developing back in 2013. There are no actors or directors attached to the project at this time, and no release date has been set.
