The TV Addict 

Earlier in the week I posted a rant about fans of the comic series the upcoming film WANTED is based on bitching about the lack of faithful adaptation. Since writing that piece I was reading through the latest issue of CREATIVE SCREENWRITING and came across an article by Peter Clines where those involved with the script (Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, and Chris Morgan) had been interviewed. It clears some things up.

First off, it appears that Universal didn’t even wait for the comic series to be finished before asking Derek Haas and Michael Brandt to adapt it. They were given the first issues and told to get going.

“Even though they knew nothing about the direction [author] Millar would be taking his series, the two men began to go down what they felt was the natural narrative path after the first issue… The screenwriters finished their first draft just as the second issue of the comic book hit the racks… Brandt and Haas had grounded their story much more in the real world, making it far less superhuman and far more what the average moviegoer was familiar with.”

As for the character of Wesley and point in my previous post that the way he is in the comic book would have never been able to make it to your local theatre…

“The two writers are also quick to point out how dark the comic version of Wesley becomes and how difficult it would be to sell such a character on screen. With his hidden weapons skills unleashed and freed from any sort of conscience … the graphic-novel Wesley … becomes rude, selfish and abusive and embarks upon murderous shooting sprees out of mere boredom. ‘I can tell you right now, had we written Wesley raping and killing and all that stuff, the movie wouldn’t have gotten made,’ Brandt says with absolute confidence. ‘It either would’ve been rewritten by someone else or they wouldn’t have made it.’”

Finally, they even address the fans I’m ranting against.

“[Haas] also acknowledges that the graphic novel has fans who will be angered by the removal of some of the more extreme material in Wesley’s development. ‘That’s fine, but it’s not the version we wanted to tell,’ Haas says. ‘So we just picked the elements we could relate to, and there are lots of great scenes in the comic book, but then ultimately as a writer you have to make the story your own.’

Or, as Morgan nicely puts it in the end:

“’I would argue that it is different than the graphic novel … [But] the roots are the same. That’s why it’s an adaptation.”