It’s funny, I was watching TV Saturday night and The Shadow came on. I’ve always liked the character, but I’m hardly a devout fan. I nearly bought the complete radio series featuring Orson Wells a few years back. Kind of regret passing it up, actually. And I have a run of the series that DC did about 20 years ago when they went completely demented with the character. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, but the people who owned the copyright were horrified and the series end in the middle of a story arc when the rights were pulled.
If I recall, the newly resurrected Shadow was beginning to fight crime with his sons using a cyborg body. So yeah, a bit of straying from its pulp origins.
Anyway, I liked the Alec Baldwin movie, even though I understand why so many didn’t. Same reason I liked Constantine, but understand why so many didn’t. It’s fun on its own, but not exactly true to the character. Plus, there are some things that are just...off.
So the movie is fun enough. The special effects still hold pretty well, the bad guy is nice and villainous and, well, I had a pretty severe weakness for Penelope Ann Miller at that time that had nothing to do with her fairly limited acting ability. But I figured since the movie flopped at the time the odds of ever seeing the character back on screen, even in these days of almost anything comic related making it to the screen, were slim.
But lo and behold, I might be wrong. And hey, if you have to get someone involved with the project, Sam Raimi is not a bad guy to have, what with him having directed Spider-Man and all. Get a good enough script and I think this could be a fun film.
Some people keep wondering when the trend of comic books to movies is going to end. No time soon, I think. There’s so much wonderful source material out there. And yeah, you can only plunder Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men for so long. But as long as you can keep making movies like Sin City, V For Vendetta, 300, or Hellboy and they make a profit, then the movies are going to keep coming (there was some talk of a direct to DVD sequel to V For Vendetta – I pray that is an evil, unfounded rumour).
So we might see a Shadow movie in a few years. Who knows?
“The Shadow knows!” Ahahahahahahahahaha!
Cough. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
3 comments:
You can find the radio episodes at http://www.otr.net/?p=shad, and elsewhere.
regards, cat` (posting anon because blogger is being fussy)
You say you used to be a reporter. If it's not too personal an internet question, where did you write besides The Muse?
Rami would be the man to do it. As well as Spider-Man, he did a great job with the Shadow-esque Darkman.
I had also picked up the Shadow series -- loved it, especially the Kyle Baker art. Though I preferred the extra-gritty Howard Chaykin version.
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