13 Broken Comic Book Movie Franchises (And How To Fix Them)

13. The Spirit

Will Eisner's The Spirit is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributions towards furthering the art-form of comics and as such it should get the adaptation it deserves. Despite the property's legendary status with comic fans though, time has seen it slip from the general public's consciousness, and Frank Miller's Sin City textured adaptation has done nothing to rectify that. Co-opting the green screen technique that he learned whilst serving as co-director of Sin City with Robert Rodriguez also made it difficult to differentiate Miller's The Spirit from the aesthetic of Sin City, and with a property like The Spirit, which is so renowned for its visual inventiveness, this can be seen as nothing short of a major opportunity missed. There is no doubting that it would be extremely difficult to get another Spirit project off the ground now, but the damage inflicted by the Miller version doesn't have to be terminal. What The Spirit needs is a director who could take the unique layout and framing techniques of the book - which owed so much to cinema - and make that one of the selling points of any new adaptation. It couldn't survive on style alone though and framing it within a tight noir detective story, drawing upon everything from Chandler to Chinatown, could see The Spirit connect with audiences. The boat may have sailed cinematically though and The Spirit may find a more suitable home on TV or even as animation, which is a sorry state of affairs to say the least.