Two things are responsible for bringing the comic book, and thereby the movie, Red, into public consciousness: the Internet and serendipity. The new film opened this past weekend racking up $22 million in opening box office receipts and DC Comics is also publishing, Red: Eyes Only, a 48-page one-shot prequel to the original comic book series that will be released October 20.
“If there were no Internet, there wouldn’t have been an opportunity for us to do Red,” said artist and co-creator Cully Hamner. He and fellow co-creator/writer Warren Ellis met and developed a mutual respect and admiration via America Online chat rooms and message boards, when those things were in fashion, and then a miracle of timing set the whole project in motion. “I basically sent a pitch to Warren for something completely different, just to see if he would say anything, and I think probably within two minutes I get a return email. It’s Warren saying ‘I was literally just about to send you this’ and it was the one page pitch for Red.”
Red is a short but sweet three issue series released by DC subsidiary Wildstorm in 2003 and 2004 about a retired C.I.A. assassin named Paul Moses who is targeted by his former employers when the agency becomes nervous about his secrets. Moses doesn’t take kindly to being attacked by his own, though, and vows revenge. The comic is violent, ripe with cultural subtext and leaves the reader dying for more. When Hamner first read Ellis’s pitch, he loved it. It was a great opportunity to do something cinematic, like a John Woo film, plus Ellis wrote it with what he believed were Hamner’s strengths in mind. Wildstorm agreed to publish almost immediately and according to Hamner, “Red” sold between 15,000 and 20,000 copies per issue—an impressive number for a creator owned comic about a man in his 50s—and the two trade book collections continue to do well.
Still, though it was a successful run and Hamner described the comic as a “stylistic turning point” in his career, because with it he started inking on his own. It wasn’t until about three years after the final issue was released that he got wind the series might be turned into a movie. Then, Hamner said, it took about year after that for the deal to get closed and an additional year before he got a text from Warren Ellis about casting. Hamner was at New York Comic Con 2009 when Ellis texted him saying that Bruce Willis had signed on to play Frank Moses. From there, stars such as Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren also joined the cast.
However, from the casting, it became obvious that Red the movie was going to be nothing like Red the comic book. First of all, in only three books, there’s not enough material to fill a two-hour movie. Plus, “if they made it truly faithful to the comic, I really think what we did would probably have something of a limited audience,” Hamner said. Because of that, Hamner and Ellis really weren’t consulted too much throughout the process. “I won’t lie, it would have been nice to have more involvement in the movie,” Hamner admitted. “But at the same time I understand they had their take. And their take was pretty drastically different from what the comic is, on the surface at least,” he said.
Red the comic is about how America deals with the after effects of the Cold War while Red the movie is more about old people beating up young people. Both share a few scenes, a structure and are highly entertaining, just in very different ways.
“You can never start with the assumption that you have a right to be involved with the movie,” Hamner said of comics being adapted into movies. “If I were making a movie like that and I bought the rights to it and I wanted to basically take it in a different direction, I’m not sure that I would want the parents of the comic wagging their finger every time we made a change. I always assumed that I would be at a distance. And anytime that they’ve asked me to do anything I’m pleased and surprised and grateful. It’s a bonus. But it’s not something I expect.”
Still, despite a lack of input into the adaptation, Hamner said he feels both that he and the material are being well respected. When he visited the set, he found copies of Red all over the place and some of his artistic choices have been used for promotional materials. Plus, he drew the covers for four comic book prequels set in the continuity of the movie and the film release opened the door to new publishing opportunities for him. Red: Eyes Only is a prequel to the comic version of Red which Hamner both drew and wrote, with Ellis’ blessing. The idea came about earlier this year and it tells the story of how Paul Moses actually ended up retired. It has nothing to do with the movie.
“I’ve had some of the ideas for this story for years,” Hamner said. “Once I seized on the premise of this book, I’d say the story was pretty much fully formed in about an hour. I wouldn’t say it was written in an hour but all the major beats of it came together very quickly.”
Hamner relished not only getting the opportunity to revisit Paul Moses but also tackle a new challenge—writing along with drawing. He agrees that Red: Eyes Only never would have happened had the movie not been in the works, but is also quick to say that he wouldn’t have reentered this world if the idea wasn’t up to par.
And no matter how successful the latest adventures of Paul Moses (in the comic) or Frank Moses (on the big screen) end up, Cully Hamner will always look back at Red with fondness. “I did that book in 2003 and here we are in 2010 and every year people bring me that book to sign,” he said. “They ask me to draw the character in Con sketches and it’s been a definitive character for me. Sort of a signature.”
