This was totally off my radar!

Aside from the Watchmen, one of my other favourite graphic novels is “V For Vendetta” by Alan Moore. A story set in a dystopian London of an alternate reality where a fascist power has taken control of Britain and one man, the “terrorist” hero V, is the only man to stand up against them.

It turns out that the movie version of V For Vendetta is scheduled for a release in November of this year. Empire caught Stephen Fry at last night’s premiere of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” and he confirmed that he had been cast as chat show host Gordon Dietrich and that John Hurt, Tim Piggot-Smith and Sinead Cusack were also starring.

My reservations about this film are that a) no good film has been made from an Alan Moore story yet (see ‘From Hell’ and ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ to date, both missing the subtle nuances of the original source material that set them an echelon above your run of the mill graphic novels) and b) it’s being produced and written by the Wachowski brothers and is being directed by a first time director James McTeigue who has been 1st/2nd AD on the Star Wars prequels, the Matrix films and, erm, Street Fighter. Then again, he was 2nd AD on Dark City.

Still, the cast (which includes James Purefoy as V, Natalie Portman as Evey, Stephen Rea and Rupert Graves) is encouraging.