Tracking Board brings word that 20th Century Fox is developing a big screen reboot of the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, hoping to turn the literary melting pot into a franchise. John Davis (Chronicle, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is on board as a producer of the project, which is currently seeking directors to shepherd it through development.
Originally created by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stars a group of Victiorian literature characters including Allan Quatermain (“King Solomon’s Mines”), Captain Nemo (“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”), the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Mina Harker of Dracula. The team is put together by the British government to foil a plot at the center of a war between villains Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty. Later volumes of the series would weave in the plots of War of the Worlds, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and even “Harry Potter.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was previously adapted into a film in 2003 starring Sean Connery (his last film role). It featured significant changes from the source material and famously began creator Alan Moore’s antagonistic relationship with Hollywood. A TV adaptation of the series was planned in 2013 with writer Michael Green (Green Lantern, “Heroes,” “Smallville”) but never materialized.
