NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT >DISNEY TO LEAP INTO SUPERHERO FOLD WITH ZIGGY ADAPTATION

DISNEY TO LEAP INTO SUPERHERO FOLD WITH ZIGGY ADAPTATION

Hollywood, CA – With billions of dollars at stake the movie industry is quickly pushing comic book adaptations into production. The box-office bonanzas that were ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Iron Man’ last year proved that comic adaptations had come into their own as viable fodder for the movie cannons. With dozens of comic properties now either in development or actively being produced the Hollywood
studios, directors, and stars are climbing all over themselves to get a chunk of what has suddenly become the hottest genre in pictures.

Some studios have a lock on those properties though and that is leaving the outsiders scrambling to get a piece of the action. With Warner Brothers, Fox, Paramount, and Universal chewing up most the scenery both Sony and Disney have been left to pick up the remainders. Sony turned that remainder into the original hit ‘Hancock’ last year, but thus far Disney has remained on the outside. The Mouse House is hoping to change all that with news that they had scooped up the rights to a number of comic strips including the long running ‘Ziggy’.

“Traditionally comic book movies revolve around superheroes. That is part of the native appeal, not the adaptation but the nature of the piece. That is what brings people who aren’t experienced with the original comic to the movies. People
generally aren’t interested in the process of adaptation but rather in the content being adapted,” said Scrape TV Entertainment analyst Tracey Temple. “Aside from the rather significant difficulty in adapting a single panel comic into a full length feature film, it’s hard to believe that the movie would appeal to anyone outside the main fan base for that particular strip. Of course that assumes that it does actually have fans. To be honest I didn’t even know it was still in publication.”

Other properties snapped up by Disney include ‘Hagar the Horrible’ and ‘Rex Morgan, M.D.’. The studio is also reportedly chasing the rights to ‘The Family Circus’ which they apparently consider a top priority. Fox Pictures currently holds the rights to ‘Marmaduke’.

“If somehow the studio can turn these comics into hits they will be in a unique position to capture the family market. Grabbing such popular and well worn titles as these could prove to be a major boon for the company, even with ‘Ziggy’ a part of that fold,” continued Temple. “’Garfield’ did well, ‘Dick Tracy’ many years ago, and of course ‘Peanuts’ has been a hugely successful in breaking out of the newspaper panel. It will be an interesting experiment.”

Many in the comic industry are also looking to Hollywood to give their strips a second life. As newspapers continue to decline and shorten both their staffs and the number of sections they publish many are in fear of decreasing relevance in the modern world, especially for those that have been around for long periods of time.

“Web comics also do a lot of damage to the viability of those older strips. They are fresh and original and appeal to a whole new generation of people and that is exactly the opposite of a strip like ‘Ziggy’. Not only are they running into dangerous ground in the immediate future but the long term
viability of their strips is at risk because they are not modernizing and this is a way to do just that,” said Scrape TV Business analyst Ken Green. “The difficulty in adapting ‘Ziggy’ though is in its inherent lack of humour or really any kind of interesting content. How they are going to stretch out a single panel of uninteresting content into a two-hour movie is beyond me but it will be at least interesting to see the effort, well maybe not but if it does work they will probably make money, well maybe.”

The studio is aiming for a 2011 release for the live action film which will compete directly with Paramount’s “The First Avenger: Captain America”. No casting or crew have been announced at this point.

Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent

NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT >DISNEY TO LEAP INTO SUPERHERO FOLD WITH ZIGGY ADAPTATION

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