Comic Book Casting: THE AUTHORITY Live-Action Movie

Every Monday here at iFanboy, we look at comics’ greatest characters and stories and try to imagine what they’d be like in film or television. From the story concept to the people in charge and all the way down to who’d play who, we do it and we call it Comic Book Casting.

It’s time that DC consider putting their strongest super-team on the big screen. I’m not talking about the Justice League; I’m talking about the Authority. Created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch in 1999 for the Wildstorm imprint, that seminal work set the stage for modern super-hero comics with high stakes, wide-screen epicness and disasters with consequences. Although the DC regime at the time found its subject matter hard to handle, The Authority proved to be so potent that it served as the blueprint for Marvel’s The Ultimates and was the pattern for analogue teams in the mainstream DCU with stories so popular they were adapted for animation — twice.

But enough about what surrounded the book — let’s talk about the book itself. The Authority sprung out the fiery remains of a previous Wildstorm book, Stormwatch, as was designed as a team to take on the biggest threats and handle them with any and all tactics. In an industry where superheroes intended for children had been struggling to both grow up for its aging audience and stay true to its original demographic, the Authority was unabashedly adult with no compunction about its content messing with any licensing deals. And it worked.

With DC casting around looking for for big screen movie potential in the shadow of Marvel’s unprecedented success, I’d heavily argue that The Authority might be the perfect DC superhero movie not set in the DCU.

The Concept:

Imagine this: a world of super-heroes, where nearly all of them have disbanded or gone underground. The threats have died down — that is, until a desperate despot from a small Asian country begins making threats. Sound familiar? In the context of The Authority, it’s Kaizen Gamorra — leader of the island nation of Gamorra, which is one part Singapore and one part Blade Runner.  Using an army of superhumans cloned from his own families DNA, he sets about making his mark on the world by targeting national capitols — first destroying Moscow, then setting its sights on London.

That’s where a rag-tag group of heroes are enlisted one-by-one and pulled together to save the day. The Authority. By their nature, super-hero movies have the tendency to be big, blockbuster special effects bonanzas — and The Authority is that, cranked up to 11. By pinpointing the epic-ness — the “wide screen” effect as it were — of superhumans battling each other with overwhelming odds and even more overwhelming damages, The Authority could be everything DC’s primary heroes like Superman and the Justice League can’t — but be something more.

The Director:

To film this spectacle, I’d go with one of the best action directors of the past decade — but one whose name is tainted by big screen faltering. Peter Berg has a great set of credits to his name, from Friday Night Lights to Very Bad Things and 2007’s The Kingdom. But he also did Battleship and Hancock. Despite that, Berg seems like an ideal director — he has his Michael Bay moments, but it’s tempered with a sense of story as seen the story of a Texas high school football team from Friday Night Lights. Can he make those two parts whole? If he could, that would be The Authority.

The Cast:

Jenny Sparks – Kate Winslet: Although in comics she’s the Spirit of the 20th Century, a good screenwriter could alter the back-story to make this work. Now for Kate Winslet she might be forever remembered as the starlet of Titanic and looked down upon by some, but after her work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Revolutionary Road you have to see she’s much more than that. And so is Jenny Sparks.

Apollo – Alexander Skarsgård: Apollo might be seen by some as a Superman analogue with a bit of a Sun God complex, but those two together form a very unique character — and that’s before you add in his relationship with the Midnighter. Skarsgård would be an excellent choice to flesh out the character an give the movie some gravitas and sex appeal.

The Midnighter – Joel Edgerton: He’s the man who could out-Batman the Batman. The Midnighter is one of the best original characters created at Wildstorm, and giving him a life onscreen with Edgerton in that role would be an excellent pair-up. Although Edgerton’s primary roles have been ones where he’s a bit more sympathetic, I really see a smirk inside him that could come out well to play this role.

The Doctor – Christian Slater: 80s “it” actor, now a Hollywood has-been? That could be said about Christian Slater, but Robert Downey Jr. was once in that same place. While I’m not saying Slater has the same talents as Downey, he does have a special something that playing the Doctor would bring out.

The Engineer – Kerry Washington: Every team needs a thinker, and for The Authority the Engineer acted as its thinker, tech support and a bit of heart when it needed it. I’ve been loving Kerry Washington on Scandal, and I feel like she’s be great put into some silver body paint and put into this role.

Jack Hawksmoor – Clive Owen: When I first thought of Comic Book Casting: The Authority, this was the casting that fell into place first. Although Clive Owen may not have the sizzle he had five years ago for the media, he’s still an excellent actor with a bit of a brutish charm that Hawksmoor does too. I think Owen could sink into this role quite well and even perhaps take it on a solo movie if things went well.

Swift – Nikki SooHoo: Of all the members the Authority, Swift was the most identified with its predecessor Stormwatch but also someone the most overlooked in The Authority series. In a big ensemble cast, I think SooHoo could still make a difference and go big in the moments she has onscreen here. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, seek out The Lovely Bones for her role as Holly to see what I’m talking about.

Kaizen Gamorra – Jet Li: Jet Li. One of China’s biggest stars, and a star himself here in America. Lately he’s been stuck in the Expendables movies, but I think he has something that American audiences haven’t seen him tap into that his Chinese fans have. I’d love to see Li be the antagonist for this movie, both as Kaizen Gamorra and potentially a  younger version of himself as the army of cloned superhumans that act as his army.

Henry Bendix – Terry O’Quinn: What’s a super-hero movie without a cameo or tease? End-credits or not, putting in a couple beats were Lost alum Terry O’Quinn steps out of the shadows as the Authority’s former Stormwatch boss would be great to hint at something more down the line. Don’t tell me you can’t see it in your mind already.