Guy Ritchie to Direct DC Comics' 'Lobo' Adaptation

Warner Bros. hearts Guy Ritchie. Having hired the director for Sherlock Holmes, which will be out at the end of the year, the studio has now attached Ritchie to steer the DC Comics adaptation, Lobo. The script has been through a couple of revisions, and now producers Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman are ready to move forward with Ritchie early next year. It's an interesting pick for the DC Comics shingle, given the movies they could be making instead. Variety says that Ritchie will take the project in a familiar direction, injecting it with "the irreverent, gruff tone of past films like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."What I take from the hiring is that the studio really likes what they've seen out of Sherlock Holmes. Ritchie has an incredibly uneven box office history and it's unlikely that he would be in this position of Warner Bros. was scared of the reaction to Holmes, especially because he doesn't appear to be the best stylistic fit for this project. And the style really counts for something here: This is an effects-laden action movie (the studio is gunning for a PG-13 rating) about "a seven-foot tall, blue-skinned, indestructible and heavily muscled anti-hero who drives a pimped out motorcycle, and lands on Earth in search of four fugitives who are bent on wreaking havoc." I can certainly see the appeal for fans of the comic, but how will the character play, as the say, in middle America? And how does this fit in with what DC and Warner Bros. want to do more than, say, Wonder Woman or Flash?

Comments

[mdamien13]

I was a big fan of these comics back in the day (aka Jr. High) and these comics books were all style so getting a director who's all style (and cheaper than Michael Bay) is probably a good fit. Not sure how this will play out as a movie w/o Simon Bisley's artwork, and seeing as Lobo once tried to kill Santa Claus in an issue I'm really curious to see what they try to do w/ for a story -- my guess is a totally lame, sanitized, Hollywood version closer to the Judge Dredd abomination.

[Get The Big Picture]

That's quite an endorsement.