The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also promoted as LXG, is a 2003 steampunk /dieselpunk superhero film loosely based on the first volume of the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Distributed by 20th Century Fox, it was released on 11 July 2003 in the United States, and 17 October in the United Kingdom. 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 was Connery's final role in a theatrically released live-action film before his retirement in 2006 and death in 2020.

As with the comic book source material, the film features prominent pastiche and crossover themes set in the late 19th century. It features 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.

It received generally unfavorable reviews but was financially successful, grossing over $179 million worldwide in theaters, and earning rental revenue of $48.6 million and DVD sales (as of 2003) of $36.4 million, against its $78 million budget.

Plot
In 1899, several terrorists posed as German soldiers use a tank to break into the Bank of England and steal Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints of Venice's foundations. Days later, the same terrorists posed as British soldiers, kidnap several German scientists and blow up a Zeppelin factory in Berlin. The attacks resulted both the British Empire and the German Empire to be at odds with each other, which may lead to the start of an imminent world war.

A British emissary named Sanderson Reed arrives to Kenya Colony to recruit adventurer and hunter Allan Quatermain, who had retired following the death of his son. Quatermain initially refuses until a group of assassins try to kill him, resulting in the death of his longtime friend Nigel and the bombardment of his club building. In London, Quatermain meets Reed's boss "M", who explains that the terrorists' leader (known as the Fantom) initiated the attacks on London and Berlin as a means to start a world war for profit, and that he intends to attack the world leaders during a conference meeting in Venice in three days. To prevent this, M is forming the latest generation of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, consisting of Quatermain, Captain Nemo, vampire chemist Mina Harker, and invisible thief Rodney Skinner.

The League travels to the London Docklands to recruit Dorian Gray, Mina's former lover who is immortal due to a missing cursed portrait. The Fantom and his assassins attack Gray's house, but the League, aided by U.S. Secret Service Agent Tom Sawyer, fends them off. After Gray and Sawyer join the League, they capture Edward Hyde in Paris, who transforms back into his alter ego Dr. Henry Jekyll, and joins the League after being offered amnesty for his crimes. The League travels to Venice in Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus. During the journey, Jekyll is having trouble controlling his Hyde urges. In addition, the League deduce there may be a mole on board when a camera's flash powder residue is found in the wheelhouse and one of the vials of Jekyll's transformation formula has been stolen. Suspicion falls on Skinner, but he is nowhere to be found.

The Nautilus arrives in Venice just as the bombs detonate, causing the Piazza San Marco and the rest of the city to start collapsing. Sawyer uses one of Nemo's automobiles to signal Nemo in launching a missile to take down a key building and stop the destruction, while Quatermain confronts the Fantom, who is unmasked as M before escaping again. Dorian reveals himself to be the mole by murdering Nemo's first mate Ishmael and stealing the Nautilus exploration pod. M, Dorian, and Reed leave a phonograph recording for the League declaring that their true goal is to ignite the world war by using the League's physical elements, and that the previous attacks, the journey and the secret conference were just distractions, all to allow Dorian to steal Skinner's skin sample, Mina's blood, and Jekyll's potion, and as well as document Nemo's science (as Gray used a camera to take pictures of the interiors of the Nautilus, which explains the flash powder residue) for M. It was also revealed that Quatermain was only enlisted to capture Jekyll to get his potion, and that Dorian only stole the elements in exchange of retrieving his portrait which was stolen by M, who plans to synthesize and sell off the elements to start off the world war. The Nautilus is damaged by bombs hidden on board by Gray, but Jekyll saves the day by taking control of Hyde and having himself drain the flooded engine rooms. Eventually, Skinner secretly messages the League, informing them that he has sneaked aboard the exploration pod and telling them to follow his directions.

Using Skinner's directions, the League reaches northern Mongolia, where they spot M's fortress hidden beneath the mountains before reuniting with Skinner, who informs that the fortress is a factory used to create and develop M's weaponry, including heavily-armed tanks and submarines, flamethrowers, automatic guns, invisible spies, vampiric assassins, and Hyde-like soldiers. Skinner also states that M is having the kidnapped scientists to synthesize on the formulas by kidnapping and holding their families hostage, and that M plans to leave for Europe tonight to sell samples of the formulas to competing nations. With this knowledge, the League set out their plan to stop M in his tracks. Nemo and Hyde rescue the scientists and their families while fighting M's second-in-command Dante, who overdoses on the Hyde formula. Skinner sets the explosive charges to destroy the factory and its weaponry, while Mina kills Dorian by exposing him to his portrait. Dante has managed to corner Nemo and Dr. Jekyll after Hyde's formula runs out, but when Skinner's explosives detonate, it creates an escape route for Nemo and Dr. Jekyll while Dante is crushed to death by the collapsing factory. In the meantime, Quatermain and Sawyer confront M and identify him as Professor James Moriarty, longtime archenemy of genius detective Sherlock Holmes who had changed identities following his alleged death at the Reichenbach Falls. However, Sawyer is taken hostage by an invisible Reed, forcing Quatermain to shoot down Reed at the cost of being fatally stabbed by Moriarty, who then flees away with his samples. Using the skills that Quatermain taught him, Sawyer manages to kill Moriarty by shooting him at a long distance, and his samples sink into the icy water. With Moriarty and his cohorts dead and their plot foiled, Quatermain dies in peace, but not before blessing Sawyer to continue his services for the new century.

Quatermain is buried beside his son in Kenya. The League recall how a witch doctor had blessed Quatermain for saving his village, promising that Africa would never let him die. The remaining League members—Nemo, Mina, Skinner, Jekyll, and Sawyer—depart, agreeing to keep using their powers for good in the new century. The witch doctor arrives and performs a ritual that summons an unnatural storm, with a bolt of lightning striking a rifle that Sawyer left on Quatermain's grave.

Cast

 * Sean Connery as Allan Quatermain, a legendary adventurer and hunter skilled in tracking, marksmanship, and hand-to-hand combat.
 * Naseeruddin Shah as Nemo, captain of the Nautilus and a gifted swordsman and inventor.
 * Peta Wilson as Dr. Mina Harker, a chemist who retains the immortality and vampiric abilities given to her by Count Dracula.
 * Tony Curran as Rodney Skinner, a gentleman thief who got his hands on Griffin's invisibility serum.
 * Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray, Mina's former lover and an experienced duelist rendered immortal by a cursed painting.
 * Shane West as Tom Sawyer, an American Secret Service agent recruited by Quatermain to assist the League.
 * Jason Flemyng as Dr. Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde, a scientist who developed a dual personality after experimenting on himself. In his Hyde form, he has immense strength, endurance, and a love of violence.


 * Richard Roxburgh as The Fantom / "M" / Prof. James Moriarty, an old enemy of Sherlock Holmes who uses his penchant for disguises and powerful intellect to manipulate the League.
 * Tom Goodman-Hill as Sanderson Reed, a representative of the British government who recruits Quatermain into the League.
 * David Hemmings as Nigel, an old friend of Allan Quatermain's who poses as him to drive off "story-seekers". He is murdered by Moriarity's agents.
 * Terry O'Neill as Ishmael, Captain Nemo's first mate.
 * Max Ryan as Dante, one of Moriarty’s henchmen who is transformed into an inhuman monster using Jekyll's transformation serum.

Writing
Because 20th Century Fox was unable to secure the rights to the title character of H. G. Wells' 1897 novel, the script referred to "The Invisible Man" as "An Invisible Man", and his name was changed from Hawley Griffin to Rodney Skinner. The Fu Manchu character was dropped. At the request of the studio, the character of Tom Sawyer was added to increase the film's appeal to American audiences and the youth demographic, a move that producer Don Murphy initially dismissed as a "stupid studio note" but later described as "brilliant".

Casting
After previously turning down the roles of the Architect in The Matrix trilogy and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the latter of which would reportedly have earned him $450 million, Connery agreed to appear as Quatermain for $17 million, a sum that left the filmmakers with little flexibility to attract other high-profile stars for the ensemble cast.

A character named Eva Draper (Winter Ave Zoli), daughter of German scientist Karl Draper, remained visible in promotional materials despite not appearing in the film's final cut.

Filming
Principal photography took place in Hungary, Malta, and the Czech Republic.

The studio pressured filmmakers for a summer release because Master and Commander was slated for fall release. The production encountered delays when a special effects set failed to perform as intended, forcing the filmmakers to quickly look for another effects shop.

Connery reportedly had many disputes with director Stephen Norrington. Norrington did not attend the opening party and, on being 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.

Connery claimed that making the film, and the quality of the finished product, convinced him to permanently retire from acting in movies. He told The Times: "It was a nightmare. The experience had a great influence on me, it made me think about showbiz. I get fed up dealing with idiots". As of 2023, Norrington and screenwriter James Dale Robinson have not worked on a live-action, feature-length film since The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Lawsuit
In 2003, Larry Cohen and Martin Poll sued 20th Century Fox for intentionally plagiarizing their script Cast of Characters, which they had pitched to the studio between 1993 and 1996. Noting that the scripts shared public-domain characters that had not appeared in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel series, the suit accused Fox of soliciting the series as a smokescreen. Fox denied the allegations as "absurd nonsense" but settled out of court, a decision Alan Moore believed "denied [him] the chance to exonerate" himself.

Box office
The film opened at #2 behind Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen grossed an estimated $66,465,204 in Canada and the United States, $12,603,037 in the United Kingdom, and $12,033,033 in Spain. Worldwide, the film took in $179,265,204.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of based on reviews from  critics, with an average rating of. The site's critical consensus reads: "Just ordinary. LXG is a great premise ruined by poor execution." On Metacritic it has a score of 30% based on reviews from 36 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B−, on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one star out of a possible four: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen assembles a splendid team of heroes to battle a plan for world domination, and then, just when it seems about to become a real corker of an adventure movie, plunges into ... inexplicable motivations, causes without effects, effects without causes, and general lunacy".

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave it one star out of four, writing: "Except for Connery, who is every inch the lion in winter, nothing here feels authentic".

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C− grade.

Empire magazine criticized its exposition and lack of character depth, giving it two stars out of five, and asserting that it "flirts dangerously close with one-star ignominy".

Accolades
The film was nominated for two Saturn Awards for Best Fantasy Film and Peta Wilson for Best Supporting Actress but lost to both The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Finding Nemo respectively.

Creators' response
In an interview with The Times, Kevin O'Neill, illustrator of the comics, said he believed the film adaptation was a critical failure because it was not respectful of its source material. He did not recognize the characters when reading the screenplay, and claimed that Norrington and Connery did not cooperate. Finally, O'Neill said that the movie's version of Allan Quatermain compared poorly to the character in the original comics, and that "the whole balance" was changed by "marginalizing Mina [Murray] and making her a vampire."

The comics' author, Alan Moore, has generally been dissatisfied with the films based on his works, but thought that the reputations of the originals would not be affected by the quality of the adaptations. "As long as I could distance myself by not seeing them, enough to keep them separate, take the option money, I could be assured no one would confuse the two. This was probably naïve on my part."

Home video
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen earned a total of $48,640,000 in rentals, including $14,810,000 from video rentals and $33,830,000 from DVD rentals. DVD sales garnered $36,400,000.

The movie was rereleased on Blu-ray in October 2018 by Fabulous Films.

In other media
A novelization of the movie, written by Kevin J. Anderson, was published shortly before the film's release.

The soundtrack album, featuring two songs performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, was released by Varèse Sarabande on iTunes, and later online. It was not sold in stores in the United States.

Reboot
The Tracking Board reported in May 2015 that 20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment had agreed to develop a reboot, in hope of launching a franchise, and that a search was underway for a director. John Davis told Collider in an interview that the film would be "female-centric". These plans were reportedly scrapped after the 2019 Disney–Fox merger. However, The Hollywood Reporter revealed in May 2022 that the reboot was back on track as a Hulu release, with Justin Haythe writing, and producer Don Murphy returning, alongside Susan Montford and Erwin Stoff of 3 Arts Entertainment.