Recently, "Red" creators Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner discussed their involvement in and knowledge of the developing film adaptation of their WildStorm miniseries. While Hamner spoke at length about the project, Ellis only offered a brief set of comments to say the script was "not bad."
Now, Ellis is giving the project a much closer examination on his official website. The acclaimed comic book author acknowledged that the film would be very different from the initial "Red" miniseries, largely due to the short length of the source material.
"['Red'] the film is very different. Not least because it needed to generate more material than the book itself actually constituted," said Ellis. "It is in fact best to consider ['Red'] as a short story being adapted into film."
Ellis contends that the comic book's 66 pages would translate to 40 minutes of film footage at absolute best, leading to a bevy of necessary changes for the adaptation. One such change is the addition of multiple characters, as the "Red" comic books only had four central characters.
"Now, while you can perfectly well make a film with only four characters in [it] — or even just one character — those films tend not to be massive commercial propositions. And Summit is in the business of making commercial films," explained Ellis. "Also, they needed to expand ['Red'] from a half-hour to an hour-and-a-half. So, yes, there are a lot of new characters."
The writer confirmed another rumored change from the graphic novel to the movie — the central character played by Bruce Willis would now be known as Frank Moses, as opposed to the name Paul in the miniseries.
"[When] you look back over his filmography, that man's actually had an incredibly weird career," Ellis surmised of Willis. "['Die Hard'] and all that, sure... but also ['The Fifth Element'], ['Twelve Monkeys'], ['Pulp Fiction'], an adaptation of a Harlan Ellison short story for TV and getting a film adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut book made by sheer force of will. Not bad."
Ellis concluded his analysis of the "Red" adaptation by once again reaffirming that Helen Mirren's character would wield a sniper rifle in the film.
"I mean, if you don't want to see a film with Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle, I'm not sure I want to know you," he wrote.
What do you think of Ellis' analysis? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!