Scott Snyder & Jock's Wytches has already been optioned for a film. 


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The same production company has already optioned Black Hole by Charles Burns (which got some play in the Long Halloween thread recently).

-M

Yes, that was quick, but I think Robert Kirkman has Snyder beat, seeing as how he sold the rights for Outcast even before issue #1 came out. Honestly, I'm not that surprised. Snyder's name always creates a lot of buzz when attached to a project.

To me it seems like a fad at the moment. It likely won't be too short lived, and of course comics were being optioned and developed for a long time. But there seems to be fewer comics out there that have yet to be optioned than those that have. Hollywood is known for buying scripts and rights and never using them, but sooner or later they'll likely collectively look at the next big thing. And after the past several years of hit comic movies, I think comics are the current next-big-thing. I don't think ten years from now creator owned comics rights will be getting purchased before the first review is in though.

EDIT: Or maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe Hollywood will think it's worth the risk to buy a property early and eventually never use it just for that off chance the thing they bought was the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they've locked themselves in for the movie (and possibly merchandising) rights for like $20k.

Oh yeah, they've always purchased rights from things like books, biographies, even board games and toys. And I don't think there will ever be a time when Hollywood doesn't want to work with comic book properties again. But at the moment getting a greenlight from Image is the same as getting a greenlight from Paramount and MGM as well. Which isn't a bad thing, an extra stream of revenue for comic creators. I just don't see Hollywood's enthusiasm keeping pace long term.

And it will be cool to see some of these movies if/when they happen.

I'm not a fan of CGI Spectacle movies. I know they're successful, but I think super hero movies would be better served if they required a little more work to make happen. But I do think as action movies evolved they made super hero stories more accommodating. Looking at a fight scene in any 70's action movie (excluding the foreign Kung Fu ones)and then comparing them to action scenes in any Jason Statham movie (even the low budget straight-to-dvd ones) and you see a world of difference. In the past Eastern movies would have experts whose entire profession was making fight scenes look super cool on film. Today we have that in America as well. Also the costumes have improved. Spandex doesn't cut it on film. Give the first Superman movie costumes from the new Avengers movie and fight choreography from The Bourne Identity and you'd have a super hero boom happening several decades earlier. Of course CGI special effects for Superman would be a huge improvement too. I just think scouting for the right location, building the locations that can't be found, and working with makeup and prosthetics are better than CGI Hulk and CGI Danger Room. To me it's gotten too easy, and they never have to attempt to be innovative when a script calls for something extraordinary. Just greenscreen it.

I suspect that most movie studios option movie and TV rights under the same model that venture capitalists do when backing startups. They realize that not every movie is going to be a huge money maker, and some may not even be feasible to make, but so long as they have a few that do really well, it more than covers the money spent in buying the rights for the duds. So they cast their nets wide and buy rights on the cheap when they are relatively unknown, before certain properties end up being proven sellers and thus more expensive for them to buy the rights for later on. And even before comic adaptations were hot, Hollywood studios were constantly on the prowl, buying the rights to screenplays that look promising for relatively cheap from hungry writers looking to make a name. Comics (and also young adult fiction) just makes it a lot easier for them to do the same thing they were doing before. When you think about it, the periodical nature of comics (and to a lesser extent, currect YA fiction which more often than not, tends to be a book series rather than a single novel or two) makes it a great source for them to mine from. With hundreds of writers churning out material every month, there's a good chance for something to be worthwhile in all of that output.