Plenty of movies throughout cinematic history have deservedly been dubbed as “career-killers,” but The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen holds the distinction of obliterating two of them at once.
Stephen Norrington deserves a lot more credit than he gets for ushering in the resurgence of the comic book adaptation with Blade, but his disagreements with star Sean Connery on set ended up with both of them deciding that they didn’t want to play the Hollywood game anymore.
The former still hasn’t returned to the director’s chair in the 20 years since, while the latter was so disgruntled with the experience that he announced his retirement from acting shortly after. Creator Alan Moore also hated it, but that’s par for the course from him, although it’s easy to see why.
Taking what’s effectively “Steampunk Avengers” and turning it into a turgid, uninteresting, critically-reviled and commercially unsuccessful failure on every level was nothing short of a travesty, which is why there’s genuine enthusiasm at the prospect of Disney mounting a reboot of a property with massive potential.
While there are a hardy band of supporters who’ll defend The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to the death, that doesn’t make it a good movie. Then again, having been surging on iTunes this week per FlixPatrol, there might just be a larger number of people who disagree than you might think.
The basic premise is ripe for reinvention, and at the very least we can assume the in-development overhaul can’t possibly be anywhere near as troubled, tedious, or career-ending as it was the first time around.