Taglines: A hunter… Live for the chase.
Renowned adventurer Allan Quatermain leads a team of extraordinary figures with legendary powers to battle the technological terror of a madman known as “The Fantom.” This “League” comprises seafarer/inventor Captain Nemo, vampiress Mina Harker, an invisible man named Rodney Skinner, American secret service agent Tom Sawyer, the ageless and invincible Dorian Gray, and the dangerous split personality of Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also promoted as LXG, is a superhero film loosely based on the first volume of the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. It was released on July 11, 2003, in the United States, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Stephen Norrington and starred Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, and Richard Roxburgh.
It is an action film with prominent pastiche and crossover themes set in the late 19th century, featuring an assortment of fictional literary characters appropriate to the period, who act as Victorian Era superheroes. It draws on the works of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Ian Fleming, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Gaston Leroux, and Mark Twain, albeit all adapted for the film.
A character named Eva Draper (Winter Ave Zoli), the daughter of German scientist Karl Draper, was removed during editing but remained in some of the promotional material. Eva had appeared in two scenes: one ended up on the cutting room floor, and she was digitally replaced with a different character in the other. A brief fight scene featuring Tom Sawyer and the replacement character was rotoscoped into the film. The deleted scenes which feature Draper appear on the DVD.
The film grossed $179,265,204 worldwide at the box office, rental revenue of $48.6 million, and DVD sales as of 2003 at $36.4 million. It was intended to spawn a film franchise based on further titles in the original comic book series but there was little enthusiasm for a sequel. The film marked Sean Connery’s last on-screen film appearance before his retirement.
Principal photography took place in Hungary, Malta, and the Czech Republic. A character named Eva Draper (Winter Ave Zoli), the daughter of German scientist Karl Draper, was removed during editing but remained in some of the promotional material. Eva had appeared in two scenes: one ended up on the cutting room floor, and she was digitally replaced with a different character in the other. A brief fight scene featuring Tom Sawyer and the replacement character was rotoscoped into the film. The deleted scenes which feature Draper appear on the DVD.
Connery reportedly had many disputes with director Stephen Norrington. Norrington did not attend the opening party, and when was asked where the director could be, Connery is said to have replied, “Check the local asylum.” Norrington reportedly did not like the studio supervision and was “uncomfortable” with large crews.
For the script, the character “The Invisible Man” was changed to “An Invisible Man” since Fox was unable to obtain the rights to the title character of H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, and his name was changed from “Hawley Griffin” to “Rodney Skinner”. The Fu Manchu character was also dropped from the script. At Fox’s request, the character of Tom Sawyer was added for American audiences and to give the movie some “youth appeal”. Producer Don Murphy, who described the request as a “stupid studio note”, later said that the move to add Sawyer was “brilliant”.
The studio put pressure on the filmmakers for a summer release. Some staff at Fox wanted it to be released in the fall, but according to the Los Angeles Times, Fox already had Master and Commander lined up for the fall. The production ran into trouble when a special effects set did not pan out as intended, forcing the filmmakers to have to quickly look for another effects shop.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Directed by: Stephen Norrington
Starring: David Hemmings, Richard Roxburgh, Sean Connery, Tony Curran, Naseeruddin Shah, Jason Flemyng, Max Ryan, Peta Wilson, Shane West, Richard Roxburgh
Screenplay by: James Robinson, Alan Moore
Production Design by: Carol Spier
Cinematography by: Dan Laustsen
Film Editing by: Paul Rubell
Costume Design by: Jacqueline West
Set Decoration by: Peter P. Nicolakakos
Music by: Trevor Jones
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of fantasy violence, language and innuendo.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: July 11, 2003
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