I haven’t followed Garth Ennis’s career beyond Preacher, but if The Boys is half as clever as that title’s early run, Neal H. Moritz would seem a curious choice to produce the big-screen adaptation. You know and love Moritz from the xXx films, Stealth and I Am Legend; he deals in testosterone and inanity. Give him a talking, homicidal stealth bomber, and he will give you magic; give him something with a little more nuance than your average Fast and the Furious entry, and he might flail a little.
I’m guessing there’s nuance to The Boys. Any comic book featuring a character based on the rippling chunk of manhood that is Simon Pegg has to have something going on behind the eyes (if I’m wrong, you have the below talk backs and the message boards to claim otherwise). The basic story concerns a group of elite CIA operatives who police and occasionally pick off rogue superheroes – which is interesting given Ennis’s hostility to authority. Then again, I guess superheroes, if left unchecked, would represent the ultimate nightmare of authority run amok (Alan Moore may have dealt with this issue once upon a time). Funny how that works.
Moritz will develop The Boys for Columbia Pictures. If he’s smart, he’ll let Ennis adapt his own material; if he’s Neal Moritz, he’ll get Rob Cohen involved and make a big mess. I don’t have a dog in this fight, so he can do whatever he pleases. But I’ve a feeling some of you feel otherwise.
Finally, if you want an update on HBO’s Preacher series, here goes: it was close to happening, and now it ain’t.