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Fox has bought an hour-long drama from ABC Studios based on The Punisher, expanding Marvel's television development slate to five live-action series. The project has been given a put-pilot commitment, meaning the pilot is guaranteed to be put into production.Holy shit! A Punisher TV series? That sounds awesome. You know, I always thought Punisher was uniquely suited for TV -- one dude, no superpowers, few supervillains, just killing criminals. Pretty easy to make, plenty of action, and who wouldn't want to watch bad guys get their asses kicked every week?
Deadline reports the adaptation, from Criminal Minds showrunner Ed Bernero,Criminal Minds? Okay... well, it's not exactly an action show, but it is a procedural, and I guess The Punisher could be a procedural with more murder at the end, so--
will transform the comic book antihero Frank Castle into a rising-star detective in the New York Police Department who moonlights as a vigilante, seeking justice for those the courts have failed.Fuck it. Never mind.
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107 comments
Criminal Minds is such a mediocre terrible show, with every possible cliché being used...it hurts. And it's still going... what a mystery.
They need to get David Simon of "The Wire" to do the Punisher for HBO or Showtime. THAT will be an awesome Punisher tv series.
It remains puzzling why Marvel can't seem to make a good Punisher movie or tv. Each attempt has amazingly gotten worse from the previous. Dolph Lundgren's movie seems almost Shakespearean now!
why the hell do they call themselves doing adaptations of comics.. and then proceed to change the shit out of them...
... and a Punisher show needs to be on FX or a channel that will let it wear an R rating...
Because this is clearly a different show that the producers wish they were doing altogether.
Think about it: some hotshot pair of wannabe producer and writer has this idea for an edgy and awesome detective show. But wait, studio says "No can do. Superhero movies are hot right now. Toss in some kind of a vigilante superhero there so we can secure our next supply of heroin intake."
What to do, what to do? Oh that's right, doesn't Marvel have that dude with no powers? What was it? Punisher? Yeah, let's gut him up, take his skin and paste it on the script, fan base be damned!
So this will be a Dark Justice (1991-93) remake... OMFG, please FOX commit suicide, end our misery, before a Sledge Hammer remake
I think a Sledge Hammer remake should be awesome, so long as they stay true to the absurdity of the concept and not make him dark and edgy (unless, of course, it's some kind of a spoof).
get garth ennis as the head writer, ship it to pay cable, BAM! good show. No way the punisher would ever work on network tv. Also, he never works as a complex character, or as a frankenstein monster.
Here's how it's going to go down: Despite all this negativity Fox will make the show and much to our surprises it will be the most awesome crazy amazing T.V show ever. The geek community will realize the error of our ways and embraces it full on.
Fox promptly cancels it after season 1.
I think the easiest think to do, would be to cgi Castle randomly into scenes of The Shield. Easy peasy.
What did you expect? You know who is in charge of developing Marvel's TV shows, don't you? Jeph "I Got Fired Off Of HEROES" Loeb!
What's the point in having a Punisher TV show that doesn't have a Punisher?
Why do studios pay good money for big name franchises like DBZ and Street Fighter and put out crap that isn't even close to the original?
They can't possible think that saying it's based on a comic will give the Punisher TV series any more credibility. This is bad all around news.
If a studio pays for a franchise name , they should make faithful movies or tv shows.
I don't get it. The new run of Punisher pretty much dumps a coherent, interesting, ready-for-TV framework into the laps of whatever exec bothers to look at it. SO LOOK AT IT, EXECS. If they want a procedural, it's a procedural--but with the cops where they should be, on the other side of the fence from Frank. If they could wait a little while longer for a few more issues, it'd be solid. Or they could just take the current premise and then do their own thing, as I hear The Walking Dead has done (?).
Why hasn't anyone tried a Question show yet?
I think that the transition from law-abiding cop to chaotic good vigilante is an interesting transition for Castle to make. If I was running this show I'd want to spend the first season having Castle broken down by the system and slowly transforming into The Punisher, culminating in killing the people responsible for his family's deaths at the end of the season. Then subsequent seasons would have a long, complicated take down of a big criminal organization. Maybe throw in some subplots of a government group trying to track him down/stop him, and I think you've got a good start to a show. Maybe in Season 4 or something you change up the formula a bit, but I don't have anything right off the top of my head.
I think a law-abiding cop to good vigilante story would be better served with Renee Montoya's move from GCPD detective to Question. I might be biased since she's my favorite DC heroine, but that's basically her story, so someone might as well use it. I like Punisher as well, but there are already plenty of good-citizen-turned-vigilante stories for people to use. His is pretty good as-is.
LOL. I forgot about Ray Stevenson, actually (had to look his up), even though it was most recent. Dolph I will never forget, and the Thomas Jane one was set where I live. :B
I agree. I'm inclined to think the good-cop/vigilante thing is maybe more an attempt to jump on the successful procedural train. Hopefully if this does take off, they'll take some time to let audiences get into Frank, rather than turning him into the Punisher in the pilot. It would be intriguing to see a gradual changeover.
I do think that the new Rucka Punisher set-up would do well as a TV series. Getting inside his head in a Dexter-type way is familiar, but watching an ostensible hero do nominally bad things from a distance is interesting too. It would be cool to be not quite sure of him, to watch him through the lens of an outside police investigation. And you are right about name recognition, of course. B-list he may be, but at least Frank has had two movies to his name already.
Hmmm, I'm skeptical of that. I think you get a lot of mileage out of making him a war hero turned good cop who takes the law into his own hands because he sees the system as broken. In a post 24 world, I don't think American audiences have a problem seeing the main character doing horrible things and still seeing them as a hero and/or empathizing with them.
I think the reasoning is to humanize him. A guy who drives around in a van with a spandex jumpsuit and an army's worth of guns & ammo to kill mobsters is crazy. It's easier to make that work in a comic than in a TV show where the audience may not expect to totally love the main character, but they want to empathize with him. People liked Tony Soprano and Dexter in ways that I don't think they would with the standard Punisher.
My boss thinks part of the reasoning behind changing Frank's origin is political--that it would be iffy to portray a Marine in that kind of mode. Opinions?
Look, man. I love the Question too, but there's no getting around the fact that the Punisher has about infinitely more name recognition. You're just not likely to get a show about the Question on network TV, but you might be able to take some of the pieces and slap them onto the Punisher to make him more compelling to a TV audience. I mean, sure, his family got killed. That's good, but they got kill for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think it's more compelling to have him start out being a good guy trying to do the right thing and then throw a bunch of guilt on top of it, and probably a big helping of crazy.
I'd love to see your Question show, especially if you can get Jeffrey Combs in there, but if a Punisher show is what we're getting, I'd rather it be good than sticking strictly to the comics. (not that I think you're arguing that it should stick tightly to the comics regardless of quality)
I don't see a problem with Castle being a cop. In fact, I like the idea that he's a cop and a vigilante on the side. Keep that as your status quo for some amount of time, and then have a mob boss find out his identity, kill his family, and expose him to the public. Then he goes underground and on the run.
When I started reading this post, I wondered how they were going to make a hospital drama or a police procedural out of it, as they seem to be the only things that get made these days. I figured the focus would be on the hot female detective who was trying to track down Frank (but is she falling in love with him?!) and then I read that they're making Frank a cop and I just laughed and laughed....
I have been a fan of the Punisher since the mid 80's and I'll admit three strikes at the movies and now this. For such a simple character story they just don't get it. I hope it doesn't even come close to being made.
Fuck, I barely even LIKE Punisher (as a concept), and this still sounds like a pile of ass.
I'm not the Punisher's biggest fan either, but I felt my eyes cramp after reading that. I'd rather he'd NOT be a current member of the force, but someone who works outside the law to take down vicious scumbags. His being a cop and moonlighting to execute people really doesn't sit well with me.
You guys do realize it would be hard to make a show about a mass murdering superhero that somehow is never caught despite the fact he just goes around shooting people in the face.
Live action T.V, unlike comic books, needs to be more realistic and conform to the rules of the world we live in (or otherwise explain why in this T.V world the rules are different), because the real world is where all the on screen action takes place.
But that's The Punisher. I mean that's his whole shtick, that's all he does he has no social life or any other kind of obstacle keeping him from killing criminals. If you want to do a figure of the law becoming a vigilante of justice than just make a Daredevil TV show. Or maybe bring The Cape back on or something, I dunno.
Not only does Dexter work for the police, actively try to hide his crimes, and always kill silently and at a hidden location. He STILL gets away with stuff people complain he should never get away with AND is always almost getting caught.
According to the FBI "At any given time 20 - 50 unidentified active serial killers are at work." Also according to the FBI about 6,000 murders a year go unsolved. The closure rate as of 2010 was 63%. That gives Frank Castle about 37% to work with.
then they just shouldn't do it. A lot of things would be hard to make into movies/tv shows and if we're lucky they have some damn common sense and don't do it.
Yeah, That is a valid point. Producers will see anything with a built in fan base and try to exploit it. Can't really blame them, its a much easier paycheck then trying to market something new.
Original Programming might be a pain in the ass to produce, but it always gladdens my heart to see it.
But my comment was mostly in response to the many people who seem to think that the punisher writes itself for T.V, and I disagree, it would actually be very difficult to pull off.
" ... a rising-star detective in the New York Police Department who moonlights as a vigilante, seeking justice for those the courts have failed."Works perfectly for DC Comics Crimson Avenger, Vigilante and Manhunter, I can picture it: Kate Spencer:Manhunter. They cannot fail with that since Kate is fücking awesome and the layout is excellente it can provide normal tthugs and crime lords also to include her foes gallery and other DC U villains with superhero team-ups.
What? Oh for the love of...he's a guy in a skull shirt who goes around shooting bad people! When the basic premise doesn't even need dialogue aside from the occasional profanity, you don't need to screw with it for an adaptation!
Look, Hollywood guys, I know everyone liked "Batman Begins," but that doesn't mean every superhero needs a brooding social commentary reimagined origin story, or that you are even competent enough to do it if you tried.
Sometimes, superpowered lummoxes beating the crap out of each other really is all you need.
best comment i've seen so far regarding this... umm. thing: "they should call this show 'Castle'..."
" ...will transform the comic book antihero Frank Castle into a rising-star detective in the New York Police Department who moonlights as a vigilante, seeking justice for those the courts have failed. "
I believe that this layou colu work bettter for a DC Comics character:
Kate Spencer: Manhunter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...The Crimson Avenger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...The Vigilante http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
They cannot fail with Kate!
This is going to fail so hard that if it were a penis, porn stars wouldn't need to fake their orgasms. o.O
