Albert and Allen Hughes' "The Book Of Eli" hits theaters today, but comics fans might recall that the "Menace II Society" directing duo got behind the camera back in 2001 for an adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel "From Hell."
Given the high profile of Zack Snyder's adaptation of "Watchmen" (also based on a Moore graphic novel — but you knew that already), we had to ask the brothers about their experience with Moore and how they felt about Snyder's take on the veteran comic creator's work.
"My brother had a conversation with Alan Moore back during 'From Hell,'" Albert told MTV News. "He said, 'You guys do your thing, I do my thing, and there's no need for us to mix it up.' And that's exactly how we saw it. We saw his thing as source material."
It's worth noting that "From Hell" was one of the first of several adaptations of Moore's work to jump to the big screen in the last decade, many of which received less than stellar reviews from fans, critics, and Moore himself. After a series of (to put it mildly) bad experiences with Hollywood, Moore has since declared that his name shouldn't be associated with any big-screen adaptations of his work.
"There's no way you can do justice to a book and there's no way a book could do justice to a movie," said Albert. "[Moore] was very respectful, and somebody could read [his comments] from the outside as sort of snobbish, but it wasn't arrogance at all. He was very much on the same page as we were."
As for "Watchmen," the other half of the Hughes Brothers offered praise for Snyder's vision — but wasn't quite on board with a few aspects of the adaptation.
"I don't blow smoke up anybody's ass, but I thought Zack did an incredible job of reinventing whatever that was when he did '300,'" said Allen. "Kudos to him, but I have a problem with big, 12-foot-long, glow-in-the-dark penises in my f---ing face. I couldn't get past the glow-in-the-dark 12-foot-long penis. I could not get past that. ... That's all I can say about 'Watchmen.'"
"But I don't want to offend anyone who's into 12-foot-long, glow-in-the-dark penises," he quickly added, laughing. "I don't want to offend that contingency at all."
"The Book of Eli" hits theaters today, January 15.
Let us know what you think in the comment section or on Twitter!
Comments
Molly (1/17/2010 2:09:20 PM)
He was naked because he was supposed to have disconnected from humanity. Osterman no longer had restraint or many of the feelings we associate with being human. It wasn't remotely sexual, not all nudity is. I personally read the TPB and then saw the movie, and enjoyed both. Alan Moore needs a little more faith in the directors, I'm sure that there'll eventually be a movie based on his work that he actually likes.
rick@splashpage (1/15/2010 4:53:42 PM)
Ha! I knew you'd be one of the first to chime in when I hit "publish" on this one, TJ. ;)
Toast-Jammer (1/15/2010 4:08:13 PM)
Alan Moore Knows The Score.