Santa Claus Conquers The Zombies!
Oct 10th, 2007 by Bryan White
I suppose I should have waited until ’twas the season to report on this, but news stops for no man. The Hollywood Reporter reported yesterday that Hollywood Gang, the people who brought you 300, optioned the rights to the Brian Posehn written Christmas Apocalypse comic, The Last Christmas.
From The Hollywood Reporter :
The story follows Santa Claus as he withdraws from normal life and turns his back on Christmas. When he emerges from seclusion, he has to find a way to save the world, and Christmas, from being overrun by demons, zombies and other bad guys.
You read it here. Santa Claus fighting demons, zombies and other bad guys. I haven’t picked up a comic in god knows how long but this is the sort of thing that I would have bought if I were still into that. I really do miss buying comics, god damn it. It also helps that Brian Posehn is quite funny and the entire premise sounds ripe for comedy and violence, not to mention plenty of one liners followed by shotgun blasts to the head.
“You’ve been very naughty…” BAM! See?
I read this comic. Its really awesome. Santa acts like John Rambo. What a cool movie it would be. I stopped buying comics a few years ago. They got too expensive… But i just love comic book movie adaptations. Which is why i keep plugging “30 Days of Night”. That comic was awesome, so I would hope the movie is up to par. Most Steve Niles comics are above average. Another comic which is being adapted for the screen is WANTED. Another one of my favorites. Sorry for the reply hijacking. You have the best blog on the http://WWW.
Damn! Thanks, JC. I’ve seen the ads for 30 Days of Night and I will admit that I’m interested but I was really let down by the comics. I found out about it the same way everyone else did. All these movie websites started yelling about it and how awesome it was before the comics were even out and how Raimi’s production company was fighting tooth and nail to secure the adaptation rights. Natually, I thought it would so completely awesome. The idea, a town above the arctic circle besieged by vampires after the sun goes down for a month, was such a great idea. I love movies that put you into that sort of isolated place, like The Thing.
Unfortunately, I thought the comics resolved too quickly. I don’t think that the isolation and desperation of just such a setting was utilized properly. I also hated Ben Templesmith’s art. I like offbeat artists and I’m not a fan of the clean lines and hyper detail of guys like Jim Lee but Templesmith’s muddy paintjobs were just a little too much.
From what I’ve seen, the production of the movie does its best to at least capture Templesmith’s designs and that really holds my attention. Rodriguez’s insistence that Sin City look like a 100% reproduction of Frank Miller’s art on film was a stroke of genius and I get the feeling that the 30 Days movie is striving for the same thing but the story doesn’t look quite the same so I’m hoping that it’s a bit more fleshed out. From what I remember about the initial pressing of the comic, it was originally intended to be a pitch for a movie in the first place, so…
I hated the art of those 30 days of Night comics… i cannot stand that type of art. lol Of course, my favorite comic book art is from the old days.. guys like Jim Steranko and Steve Ditko. Frank Miller is pretty awesome sometimes (Dark Night and Sin City). Todd McFarlane was awesome when he did Spawn and Spiderman #300. Jim Lee is too much of a fan boy Icon for me… same with Michael Turner, etc… Of course, I go to comic book conventions regularly, so I guess I AM A FANBOY. Again, sorry for hijacking the comments. Overall, I assume 30 days of Night will be good but not fantastic. The truly fantastic comic book adaptations are few and far between. The good ones being The Crow, Sin City, the most recent Batman (although not a true adaptation) and a few others. Movies like Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Elektra, the most recent Spiderman (with Venom), the Fantastic 4 franchise, the Hulk and any other Marvel Comics B#LL$Hit need not be poisoning my Playstation 2 DVD player. On another note… i rented Bug last night and will be watching it tonight!