Screenwriter Comes Down ‘Witch Mountain’ And Goes Up ‘The Umbrella Academy’

Posted by Rob Hunter (rob@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 8, 2009

umbrella-academy

And the next comic book gone Hollywood is… Gerard Way’s The Umbrella Academy!

Who and what is that you ask? No freaking clue, but thanks to the interweb I’ve cobbled together some pieces of information for those of us not in the know… Way is a member of My Chemical Romance, which is a band. They create music for the MTV crowd. The Umbrella Academy is a two-series comic featuring an eclectic mix of superheroes trying to save the world. Wikipedia sums it up nicely:

The members of the Umbrella Academy, a disbanded group of superheroes, reunite after the death of their adoptive father, “Sir Reginald Hargreeves”. Hargreeves, an alien disguised as a famous entrepreneur, collected the members of the Umbrella Academy shortly after their birth and trained them to save the world from an unspecified threat. After his death, the members carry on his plan to save the world.”

Per /Film, Universal has picked up the rights for a film version and has hired screenwriter Mark Bomback to transition the comic from page to screen. Bomback’s most recent film is Race to Witch Mountain, but lest you hold that against him he also wrote the hideous Godsend with Robert DeNiro and the inane Deception with Ewan McGregor. His lone bright spot so far is Live Free Or Die Hard with Kevin Smith. Even though the odds aren’t with him, the material looks pretty promising so I’ll be looking forward to this one in 2012.

Have you read the comic? Could it make a good movie? Did you catch my title reference to the classic Mad Magazine movie starring Ralph Macchio?

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Mal Reynolds

read the comic, its decent but haphazard and best, the writing is scatter brained and each character is overly complex enough for their own movie. Its too many ideas in too small a space and a film version is likely to stomp on its own feet and dance awkwardly for a minute before falling on itslef breaking its own neck.

Mladen

Don't forget that it'll most likely have a score/soundtrack by My Chemical Romance.

ashley

the comics are pretty great. the only bad thing is that the characters haven't had time to be fully flushed out, but a movie could help further develop them.

Cody

I'm not sure about this one. Read a bit of the comic, and to me, its just seems like Gerard's epic superhero fantasy, and like all 12 year old boys trapped in the bodies of 30 year olds, that tends to be super lame and not interesting in any way shape or form.

As for the soundtrack, it would never have My Chemical Romance music, unless they made something new just for the comic, and it would be a leap of faith from traditional MCR music. Turst me when I say MCR and TUA have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Screenwriter Comes Down ‘Witch Mountain’ And Goes Up ‘The Umbrella Academy’

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