Let’s hop into the “wayback machine” and take ourselves to the late 90s, when Wildstorm’s Cliffhanger imprint had its day. You had Joe Mad’s BATTLE CHASERS, Humberto Ramos’ CRIMSON, the Scott Lobdell/ Leinil Francis Yu-created HIGH ROADS and my, personal favorite, STEAMPUNK by Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo. Arguably, the title that made the biggest splash was J. Scott Campbell’s DANGER GIRL, which was a tongue-in-cheek mash-up of spy and adventure movies from the 60s through the 80s. I’d say it was less CHARLIE’S ANGELS and more girl-power AUSTIN POWERS.
I’ve filled you all in on that because I needed a little refresher myself. It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything DANGER GIRL-related on the shelves, but we just might be seeing it on the big screen in time. The LA Times put up an interview with Adrian Askarieh, the producer who’s currently got the rights to the project, and here’s his description of the tone and approach...
First of all, we are taking these characters very seriously; a kind of "Batman Begins" approach, if you will. Also, Todd has a very interesting aesthetic approach to this project, which will actually inform the tone of the storytelling and the movie as a whole. Without giving too much away, he wants to use the technology similar to that used in "Avatar" to bring Campbell’s characters and world to life and yet, at the same time, have the audience fully recognize and be emotionally invested in the actors playing those characters.
His approach, in both the look and the tone for "Danger Girl," is what I call the anti-"Charlie’s Angels” and feels more like next-step progression from what I hear Zack Snyder is doing with "Sucker Punch," visually speaking.
Sounds like they're going for some motion capture, which will be fitting, though I’m a little dubious about the comparison of approach to BATMAN BEGINS. Sure, that was wildly-successful movie, but I don’t think anybody who’s read DANGER GIRL will think that a serious, down-to-Earth approach that makes the concept plausible in the real world really suits this good girl book. Isn’t one of the Danger Girls’ main foes named Major Maxim? I’d be kind of curious to see if they’re even going to try to cast the actors who Campbell clearly modeled certain characters after, like Bonds Timothy Dalton and Sean Connery.
Anybody else in the globetrotting Comic Vine community remember DANGER GIRL and Cliffhanger? Even if you don’t, we’re putting you in the fantasy producer’s chair. What your approach be? Who would you cast?
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this April - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.