Wanted - Dead Or Alive?

Mark Millar's Wanted is headed to the big screen, courtesy of Nightwatch director Timur Bekmambetov and a cabal of writers and rewriters, both destined to be credited and not. What's Russian for 'botch job'?

Now, the official synopsis has been cut and pasted into Coming Soon, and already the web waves are crashing. Fans of the comic don't recognise this plot at all, and they don't like it either.

Of course, I'd take a different point of view entirely. Millar's comic book already exists, and no movie is ever going to take it away. All I care about is that any adaptation is good, and there's no reason to suppose good means faithful.

Most of the best stuff in The Lord of the Rings movies is the result of Peter Jackson and team, not Tolkien; and I won't forget how slavishly dedicated to the books the first two Harry Potter films were - nor how dreadful they were either. Such inert, stale and airless films.

Having said all of this, the synopsis for Wanted does seem a little ho-hum.