Film
On July 19, 2006, The Hollywood Reporter reported that comic book writer/artist Frank Miller would write and direct the feature film adaptation of The Spirit with Samuel L. Jackson as the Octopus. Unlike the comics his face is seen in the film, depicted with eight "prison tears" under his eyes like octopus tentacles; he brags to have "eight of everything". In another departure from the comic, he holds a love of powerful firearms, including two Desert Eagles, two miniguns, two .500 S&W Magnums, two Sawed-off shotguns, and a pair of four-barreled shotguns. He also wears a series of outlandish costumes such as a long fur coat and hat inspired by blaxploitation films and Russians, a Nazi uniform, and a samurai robe and hairpiece inspired by classic kung-fu movies.
The film combines elements of Dr. Cobra from The Spirit comics with the Octopus in that he is revealed to have been responsible for the Spirit's resurrection and immortality thanks to a regenerative formula he invented and injected himself with as well after succeeding. His quest in the film is to get his hands on the Blood of Heracles to drink and become a god. Following a fight with the Spirit, the Octopus escapes but ends up with Jason's Golden Fleece desired by Sand Saref, now with the blood. After going to desperate measures trying to find Sand and kill the Spirit, the Octopus hires a beautiful assassin, Plaster of Paris, to take down his nemesis. At the end of the film, the Octopus is finally defeated in a manner similar to his demise in the comic, being blown up by a grenade. However, his severed finger is found by Silken Floss, leading to the possibility that the real battle has only just begun.
Read more about this topic: Octopus (comics)
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“All the old supports going, gone, this man reaches out a hand to steady himself on a ledge of rough brick that is warm in the sun: his hand feeds him messages of solidity, but his mind messages of destruction, for this breathing substance, made of earth, will be a dance of atoms, he knows it, his intelligence tells him so: there will soon be war, he is in the middle of war, where he stands will be a waste, mounds of rubble, and this solid earthy substance will be a film of dust on ruins.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“A film is a petrified fountain of thought.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“This film is apparently meaningless, but if it has any meaning it is doubtless objectionable.”
—British Board Of Film Censors. Quoted in Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion (1984)