Ironically for a writer who notoriously hates having his work adapted, the comics of Alan Moore just keep being brought to the screen. Sometimes they’re awful (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), sometimes they’re middling (Constantine), but on occasion they’re just plain awesome, like 2006’s V For Vendetta.
11 years since the smart, politically-aware dystopian story was last put to film, news has arrived that suggests it could be making its way to the screen again, this time on TV. According to Bleeding Cool, their industry sources have informed them that British network Channel 4 are working on a new TV series based on Moore’s original comic.
That’s about all we know for now, but it seems that the television version would likely hue closer to the graphic novel than the film, which was largely faithful but made some significant changes here and there. For one, it updated the setting from the 1980s to the 2000s and added in a romance between vigilante V (Hugo Weaving) and his protege, Evey (Natalie Portman). Whether the series will be able to top the movie, written and produced by the Wachowski siblings of The Matrix fame, is a different question.
While it’s yet to be officially announced, we can see this rumour being 100% true. For one, some might say that V For Vendetta’s warnings against xenophobia, bigotry and fascism are arguably more timely than they were when the film came out. Channel 4 are also making themselves known for producing intelligent science fiction. They initially produced Black Mirror before it was sold to Netflix and their new dark anthology series, Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, has just began airing.
V For Vendetta isn’t the only Moore TV adaptation in the works, either. HBO are also working on a Watchmen TV series, following on from Zack Snyder’s 2009 film. With the Watchmen also colliding with the DC universe in this fall’s Doomsday Clock in the comics, it’s a good time to be a fan of Moore’s work. Even if the man himself is probably fuming.
