In case you haven’t seen it yet—and if you haven’t, you either don’t really care or have been buried alive for the last few days—the trailer for Red is out.

I’ve already written that I’ve come to terms with adaptations, and this one specifically. In this case, I don’t even really count it as an adaptation. Other than the title, some character names, and the very general concept of the original, this has very little in common with the graphic novel.

As even Warren Ellis himself has stated, this is not necessarily a bad thing. What would a film version of the original have looked like? Good question, in light of what Mr. Ellis discusses about comic book page length and movie run time (hint, there’s not enough in the 4 issues of Red to actually make a movie).

Divesting this movie from its relationship to the graphic novel is very easy. They’ve even postulated that the title is an acronym for some kind of cutesy designation.

They took something very, very dark and cynical and made it relatively light and frothy.

Which may sound like a condemnation, but it’s not. It is simply an observation.

I’m looking forward to this, but I don’t think it is something that screams to be seen in the theatre—at least not for me. Once it’s on DVD, though, I’ll be sure to check it out.

Remembering that this is about Paul Moses’ brother, Frank.

To read a previous post I made about Red, go here.

To read Warren Ellis’ thoughts on it, go here.