THE SPIRIT Movie: Nothing To See Here

No, you can't see the actors on the green set of Frank Miller's Will Eisner’s The Spirit. Except that you can. Just don't tell anyone.
On Friday, 4 April, Dark Horizons excitedly posted forty new leaked from the all-green-screen set of writer-director Frank Miller's highly-anticipated movie adaptation of Will Eisner's classic comic strip, The Spirit, which recently wrapped principal photography. Several of the "bigger" fan news sites linked to DH, and even posted a few of the photos themselves.

The inevitable reaction to an unexpected leak followed:
"photos removed at the request of Lionsgate."

This left some folks, such as ALEX BILLINGTON at FirstShowing.net, to insert the consolation note "teaser trailer will play in front of Iron Man on May 2nd." Others were not so sporting: SlashFilm's PETER SCIRETTA filled the hole with "Imagine Really Crappy Looking Spirit Set photos Here."

However, there are advantages to being the still-fairly-young and under-the-radar EARTH'S MIGHTIEST, who discovered (with a little digging) that Lionsgate's "mouthpieces" don't bother with foreign-language sites such as the French DVDrama.com.

Looking at the "raw" photos, most of which feature the actors in full, cartoon-style costume against wall-to-wall green screen, one easily could agree with Sciretta's above derisive description, as did RICKY ROMA at FirstShowing, when he pronounced that the movie "looks camper than a row of tents." But Billington was quick to remind fans that there are "months and months of CGI work" between now and The Spirit's theatrical debut.

NEIL MILLER at FilmSchoolRejects.com obviously was able to envision the finished product when he wrote that The Spirit "doesn’t lack style--in fact, it sports a cast that is one part sexy (Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega) and two parts badass (Samuel L. Jackson)."

Because director Miller, best known as a graphic novelist for post-modern pulp noir series such as Sin City, was inspired in his career by Eisner's pulp-styled Spirit strips, IVAN at FirstShowing is confident Miller "will treat one of his favorite characters with care on the big screen."

Created in 1940, The Spirit still is acclaimed today for its innovative art style and for its diverse narratives that cover crime drama, adventure, mystery, horror, comedy and romance.

In the movie version, rookie cop Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht) returns "from the dead" as a masked vigilante to face The Octopus (Jackson), a criminal mastermind who plans to wipe out Spirit's beloved Central City as he pursues his own version of immortality. The Spirit tracks Octopus through rundown warehouses, damp catacombs, and the windswept waterfront, but is impeded in his crusade by a bevy of beautiful women, including Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), the police commissioner's daughter; Silk N. Floss (Johansson), punk secretary and Octopus's right hand; murderous French nightclub dancer Plaster of Paris (Vega); phantom siren Lorelei (Jaime King); sexy young cop Morgenstern (Stana Katic), and, of course, Sand Saref (Mendes), Denny's childhood love turned jewel thief. Will he save her...or will she kill him?

The real question, according to SlashFilm's Sciretta, is: "Can Frank Miller direct without the help of Robert Rodriguez?" After all, Miller's only previous directing experience was his co-helming of Rodriguez's Sin City movie adaptation.

On Saturday, April 19, fans can decide for themselves at the 2008 New York Comic Con, where Miller and Mendes, along with producers Deborah Del Prete and Michael Uslan, will host the world premiere of the film's teaser trailer in NYCC's IGN Theater. MTV News Correspondent Kurt Loder will moderate a Q&A panel, and the trailer will debut in high definition to a global audience on MTV.com that Saturday night.

Will Eisner's The Spirit, "un film de Franck Miller," hits U.S. theaters on January 16, 2009. You have to wait til February 4 if you're in France.
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PAnthony
4/10/2008
DVDrama