MillerowenSo just what has Frank Miller been up to out in Hollywood? Signing up for the screenplays: An adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESS with Clive Owen set to star.

“Sin City” was Miller’s first collaboration with Owen. “Trouble Is My Business” was chosen partly because it provides the actor with a similar chance to frame the narrative with a compelling voiceover, using Chandler’s hardboiled prose as hard-drinking private eye Philip Marlowe cracks cases, busts heads and romances femme fatales in 1940s Los Angeles.

While many of Chandler’s novels have been turned into films, “Trouble Is My Business” is virgin territory.

“Frank Miller knows more about noir than anyone I have ever met, and clearly the writing of Raymond Chandler has been an enormous influence on his life and his work,” Owen said. “Miller adapting Chandler seemed like a perfect match.”


Wow, sounds like Clive and Frank are BFFs!

PS: As long as people are mining the classics, howabout a real version of RED HARVEST while you’re at it?

12 COMMENTS

  1. Ok Frank! Enough! we know your ego is bigger than the solar system…..why don’t you finish one thing at at time, Sin City 2 isn’t even done, ALL-Star Batman isn’t done yet, The Spirit is’nt even in motion yet, and you also want to add THIS to your list after Batman vs Al-Queada?
    AH ha ah ahahhaha ahah ah

  2. Anyone who equates Chandler with Sin City needs to be beaten.
    And anyone who argues with that has never read Chandler. Or seen Chinatown. Or… read a book.
    Fortunately, this project will never see a green-light.

  3. >Anyone who equates Chandler with Sin City needs to be beaten.

    Bingo. Miller really needs to learn something about film noir (to say nothing of Chandler’s character-driven stories) besides what it looks like.

  4. I dunno … Miller and Owen could surprise and make a good Chandler film.

    “And anyone who argues with that has never read Chandler. Or seen Chinatown. Or… read a book.”

    I have to argue with that. CHINATOWN was written by Robert Towne, and the ending revising by Roman Polanski. It was influenced by Chandler’s stories, I suppose, but Towne was making an effort to turn some of the detective clichés on their collective ear. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler are often accused of clichés by ignorant critics, despite the fact that they were the architects of the genre.

    As for Dashiell Hammett, my favorite author … Hell, yes, Heidi … let’s see a REAL adaptation of RED HARVEST. I’ve seen FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, YOJIMBO, and LAST MAN STANDING … when I finally read Hammett’s novel, however, I saw little resemblence between RED HARVEST and these films, all of which claim to be adaptations of sorts.

    I’m not certain how this RED HARVEST ever became connected to this films, except it had something to do with legal action between Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone. I think Leone claimed that his movie owed more to RED HARVEST than YOJIMBO. Frankly, I don’t see the resemblence. Two gangs are at war, and there’s a good guy in the middle. If that’s the standard for “adaptation”, you could argue that every superhero ever created is directly stolen from THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE.

    MILLER’S CROSSING splices elements of RED HARVEST and the GLASS KEY … but we still don’t have a faithful film of the former. As for GLASS KEY, skip CROSSING and dig up a copy of GLASS KEY (1942) with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

  5. rich says: “I have to argue with that. CHINATOWN was written by Robert Towne, and the ending revising by Roman Polanski.”

    Well, the ending was the most notorious/famous conflict over Chinatown where Towne became very unhappy with what Polanski wanted to do, i.e. a depressing ending rather than a happy one. However, the original C-town script was reportedly a 200-page behemoth with tons of complicated detail about the water deal that’s only covered in somewhat slight terms in the final film. Polanski did a lot to whittle the script down into the taught thriller that’s become a classic.

  6. I wonder why Miller hasn’t tried to get the film rights to a Mickey Spillane film? Certainly, that would be more in line with his SIN CITY style than Chandler’s tomes.

  7. I’m going to give Frank the benefit of the doubt that he could make a good movie. I really hope he pulls it off, as (I believe) it would be a first for a comic book creator to become a successful filmmaker. Sure, there are people who are here and there, mostly in TV, but this could be big. We’ll end up seeing all our top talent gobbled up by Hollywood, and then more and more talented people will find comics to be a gateway to getting a directing gig (for better or worse).

  8. Chinatown was okay (loved that trick with the watch), but I find it to be a poor copy of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

  9. And as you all know, Roger Rabbit was freely adapted from the book, Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, so maybe this adaptation will be decent, shweetheart.

  10. whatever. it’s just reporting is all, Chris. anyways, I was wondering if Chandler ever put out any comics like Mickey did waay back.

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