Fox Planning To Reboot 'The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen'

Despite the fact that he is one of the most renowned — albeit frequently problematic — comics writers of the past 30 years, Alan Moore has terrible luck when it comes to cinematic adaptations of his literary works.

However, that luck looks like it might have a chance at turning around now that 20th Century Fox has announced plans to reboot The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen — a film remembered as being so bad it literally drove Sean Connery into retirement — with John Davis (Predator, Chronicle, I, Robot) already attached to produce.

As Variety reports, the series is being given a second chance at life under the guidance of Ira Napoliello and Matt Reilly following a stalled 2013 bid to bring the franchise to the small screen as a TV series.

From Watchmen to From Hell, feature films have never quite captured the depth and nuance of Moore's comics, a failing perhaps best demonstrated by the doomed 2003 blockbuster about a sort of Victorian-era super-group consisting of famous characters from throughout classic literature, including Mina Murray (Dracula), The Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, Allan Quartermain (King Solomon's Mines) and Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea), among others (like the inexplicably included Tom Sawyer).

Its cinematic adaptation, released 12 years ago, starred Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Stuart Townsend, Richard Roxburgh, Tony Curran, Shane West and Jason Flemyng, and was resoundingly pilloried upon its release as less a cogent film than, to quote Roger Ebert, "general lunacy".

Any plans for a sequel were abandoned — and there were plans for a franchise before the movie's woeful financial returns, though it did make a profit — leaving the property to languish in obscurity for more than a decade.

In contrast, the book itself has enjoyed a long and varied run, with the first two collected editions of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen reflecting a very similar group to that shown in the film before branching through time in third volume Century, which spans from 1910-2009 and introduces new incarnations of the League. The strong'n'silent Captain Nemo also received his own spin-off series Nemo: Heart Of Ice and Nemo: The Roses Of Berlin.

If you've forgotten what the deal was with LXG 2003, reacquaint yourself below.