THE SPIRIT finally headed for the big screen

I have one of those
“Brush With Greatness”
things with a Hollywood
producer and have known
about the project that’s
being announced at the
San Diego Comic-Con
this week for quite some time. Since I lost touch with the driving force behind this for different reasons (mainly because I’m a nobody), I wasn’t kept appraised of the details that came out today in the Hollywood Reporter:

Comic ‘Spirit‘ being adapted for big screen

More than four decades after
Will Eisner created him, “The Spirit” – one of the most influential comics of all time — is coming to the big screen. The movie will be adapted and directed by Frank Miller, who will be on hand for the public announcement of the project Saturday at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Odd Lot Entertainment’s Deborah Del Prete and Gigi Pritzker will co-finance and produce “The Spirit.” Also producing is Batfilm Prods.’ Michael Uslan.

The really big news is that they’re letting Frank Miller write as well as direct this. Bold move, to be sure.

My personal brush with this project was some years ago when I had an ever so brief phone conversation with Micheal Uslan, the driving force behind getting this done. At the time, his licensing of Eisner’s The Spirit was a big secret.

Uslan was also the driving force behind getting the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents movie going. He was the licensor of the movie rights to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, licensing them from my friend John Carbonaro, the owner of the comic book characters which first saw the light of day in the late 1960s. Michael chatted me up, trying to get me to convince John to allow a certain “vision” of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to be made into comic books and a possible movie. Mr. Uslan mentioned the The Spirit movie project as a way to convince me to convince John not to override Uslan’s vision of what the the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents should be like in a movie. It was a short phone conversation — about 15 minutes — but memorable. This was all before CATWOMAN, CONSTANTINE and BATMAN BEGINS, movies that Uslan’s production company had a hand in, had come to their final stages.

Mr. Uslan also had a direct hand in working with DC Comics to produce the comic book archives of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS as well as the contract with DC Comics to produce the new adventures of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.

After this phone call with Micheal Uslan, I did go to John to try to convince him that Mr. Uslan would treat the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents properly and that John should give in on several points to allow events to continue. John wasn’t convinced, and stuck to his guns on the issue.

The twist of all of this is that, upon further review, I ended up agreeing with John in that I now believe that Mr. Uslan was the wrong person to help license the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.

Since the license to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents has expired, for both live action, animation and comic book, John Carbonaro is looking for new licensing agreements to bring the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents back to life again. Interested parties can contact me with the “Inquire of Walt” mail link down in the Cuppa Links section of the sidebar.

As for The Spirit, I’m more than looking forward to Frank Miller’s interpretation of the legend. The character is a bit like Batman in that he doesn’t use a gun. This should be a supreme test of what Mr. Miller can envision…

[via]