Back before Tim Miller was directing his record-breaking smash hit Deadpool, he was one of the guiding forces behind developing the animated adaptation of Eric Powell’s comic series The Goon.
David Fincher signed on to produce the film in 2008 , working off a script from Powell himself, and recruited Miller to co-direct the project along with Jeff Fowler. The effort eventually culminated with a trailer length release of some test footage in 2012, not unlike the video that gained a large enough viral following to get Deadpool off the ground. However, unlike what happened with Deadpool, that was the last anyone heard about the project.
Until now. After the staggering success of the Merc with the Mouth getting his own solo film, an R-rated one at that, there is a renewed interest in Miller bringing Goon and Franky to the big screen. Miller spoke with Collider about the calls he’s been receiving since Deadpool‘s release, and it bodes well for all Goon fans.
“I can honestly say, without saying who, there has been a number of calls now—for years it didn’t happen—saying, ‘Hey we hear you have this Goon project. When can we see it? What can we see?’ Jeff and I re-recorded some V.O. for the animatic last week, we’re doing some more week after next with a very prominent movie star. We know we’ve got a really good shot here and we wanna put our best foot forward.”
The animatic he’s talking about is the fruit of the $440 thousand that was raised by the Kickstarter some years back, which they used to promote to studios before the project was originally shelved. In the interview, Miller expresses his sincere regret to all the Kickstarter supporters for the lack of a finished product, but explains that he and Fowler have since been reworking the animatic, complete with more voice over work by Paul Giamatti, in an effort to fully capitalize on the renewed studio interest.
All of this is great news for fans of the Dark Horse series, if only just to hear that the project is still alive and hopeful. To those unfamiliar with the comic, you have a lot to look forward to as well. The Goon is an incredibly well-written series, with possibly one of the most heartfelt and sincere storylines in all of recent comic lore. The stoic, lumbering romantic Goon, and his erratically violent yet caring sidekick Franky would provide Miller with an even greater universe of characters to work with than even Deadpool could, which is saying something. If and when this film gets picked up, I’d hate to be one of the execs who passed on it.
Images: Dark Horse Comics
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