I’m as happy as the next geek about the announcements of both a Jonah Hex and Lone Ranger films. What puzzles me is that neither movie plans on involving Joe R. Lansdale with the script.
From ShockTillYouDrop:
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| In just a little over a month, powerhouse writing-directing team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Game) begin shooting a sequel to their pumped-up, kinetic actioner Crank. Following that, it’s Jonah Hex, the DC comics western steeped in the supernatural.
“I think it’s the best script we’ve written,” Taylor told me during a late-night soiree in Hollywood thrown in anticipation of Pathology, a film he co-penned with Neveldine. Warner Bros. apparently loves the script and understands the tone the pair have brought to this tale of true grit and blood – and if you’ve seen Crank and Pathology, you know all bets are off and you’re in for a unpredictable, f’ed-up ride.
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It may be the best script they’ve written, but no incarnation of Jonah Hex has ever matched Lansdale’s interpretations. In his three DC/Vertigo mini-series, Lansdale (along with his frequent artistic cohort Tim Truman) re-imagined the scarred gunfighter’s adventures with a supernatural bent.
From Lansdale’s intro to Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo:
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| I remembered reading the Hex stories as being somewhat spooky, supernatural. But when I began rereading those written by Hex’s creator, John Albano, I was astonished to discover they were good, tough Western stories, but they weren’t any supernatural elements. Nary a one. […] This surprised me. My memory had play tricks on me.
[…]The old comics were great, but I decided I wanted to bring in the elements of my false memory, tie them to Albano’s creation, and let the good times roll.
I wrote my story to reflect the old Hex,[…] but I gave the story an echo of what I thought had been in the early Hex stories, but wasn’t. I decided to keep it subtle however, so that the reader could, to some extent, read it either way– as real supernatural business, or as real-life weird business.
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Course the reason for not including Lansdale may have had to do with the 1996 lawsuit surrounding the second Lansdale-Truman Hex series, Riders of the Worm and Such.
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| The Winter brothers sued DC, as well as writer Joe Lansdale and artists Tim Truman and Sam Glanzman, on the basis of two unsavory characters introduced into the Jonah Hex storyline as the Autumn brothers, which the Winters argued constituted a defamatory representation and a misappropriation of the musicians’ likenesses. Like the Winters, the Autumn brothers were albinos from the South named Johnny and Edgar. The fourth issue of the miniseries was entitled “The Autumns of Our Discontent,” replacing “Autumns” for “Winter” in the famous phrase from the first line of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Though singing cowboys figured in the story, the Autumn brothers were anti-singing. They were also dim-witted,murdering, pig-humping, inbred offspring of raped humans and supernatural worms. |
The case worked its way through the legal system, finally being resolved in 2003, when the California Supreme Court sided with DC.
Thought DC never collected Riders of the Worm and Such, the duo returned to Hex in 1999 with Shadows West (also never collected. Imagine an Absolute Jonah Hex collecting the three Lansdale-Truman series?). Lansdale also scripted the Jonah Hex appearance on The Adventures of Batman and Robin.
Typical Hollywood b.s. probably has more to do with why Lansdale isn’t writing the upcoming movie, but one never knows. Still, I’d be much more eager if he was involved.
And then this announcement from Disney via Hollywood Reporter:
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| Writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are going from “shiver me timbers!” to “Hi-ho Silver!”
The writing duo, best known for their work on the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, are in final negotiations to write a live-action big-screen adaptation of “The Lone Ranger” for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
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Soon after the success of their first Jonah Hex series, Lansdale and Truman tackled the iconic Western characters The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Their controversial take started with Tonto decking the Lone Ranger. This humanized Tonto grew the ire of Rush Limbaugh, who cited it as an example of what is wrong with America, and applauded by Native American groups. This one had some weirdness and supernatural as well, but it was one of the finest portrayals of the Lone Ranger. And yet, Lansdale is not working on this script either.
Lansdale has become a sought after screenwriter over the past several years with a half a dozen productions in their early stages. So having him work on two characters that he clearly understands might make sense, but this is Hollywood, where sense need not apply.
Jonah Hex and Lone Ranger films announced was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon
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