While best known for killing Captain America, Ed Brubaker has a much more deserved reputation for his successful blending of superhero stories and noir drama, as demonstrated in his acclaimed runs on Catwoman and Daredevil, as well as his work with frequent collaborator Sean Philips. In what is possibly their magnum opus, Brubaker and Phillips gave us Sleeper, a twenty four issue series in two volumes published by DC-Wildstorm, as well as Incognito from Marvel-Icon, which I’d previously covered here.
The plot of Sleeper is similar to The Departed, but with Superpowers. Holden Carver is a mid-level member of a Syndicate of super-criminals. What's more is that Carver is actually an undercover agent whose handler, the only person aware of his mission, had recently been rendered comatose. Sleeper follows Carver as he tries to find a way out, while doing whatever it takes to keep his dangerous employers oblivious of his true nature.
It is one of the best stories you might not have read, and I for one hold it pretty dear alongside stuff like We3, All-Star Superman and Watchmen. As such I’ve long hoped to see a faithful adaptation.
The rights to Sleeper belong to Warner Bros, and there have been five serious attempt to adapt Sleeper, with the most recent and current attempt being by Sam Raimi and Tom Cruise. I’ve mixed feelings about all the above, while WB has a pretty decent record, it is not without its poor efforts, such as Jonah Hex and Hellblazer/Constantine and to a certain extent; lesser now, more eclectic and adult oriented properties, similar to Sleeper.
As always, though, here’s who I hope to see.
Holden Carver
Our hard-boiled protagonist used to be a Black Ops operative for the American Intelligence agency called
International Operations. While on a mission in the jungles of South American, Carver became bounded with Alien relic that granted him immunity to injury and the ability absorb pain and release it through touch. The downside was he could no longer feel anything. Carver’s mentor Lynch promptly recruited him to infiltrate the syndicate of the terrorist mastermind known as Tao. Things were going as well as could be expected, until someone tries to kill Lynch and he falls into a coma.
Holden Carver is a bona fide noir protagonist; he is prone to temptation, wiling to do things are questionable and sometimes outright wrong to survive, and manipulated by powers greater than he.
Chances are you think this an arbitrary, cookie-cutter choice, but hear me out. Carver is one of the characters that I found difficult to cast. So much so that I originally wanted to do Sleeper for my first fan cast, and wounded up doing seven others while I got this one just right.
What I usually do is I think of a character, think what actors reasonably look like him and then figure out which one has the best range or excels at that type of character and would fit with the rest of the cast. This time I drew a blank, and unable to think of anyone who fits Carver physically (except for Tim Robbins, who is just wrong), I decided to think of who could have played Carver regardless of age or being dead, and I came to think of a young Lee Marvin. That’s who’d make a great Carver; someone with the look of an old fashioned tough guy, not a pretty boy but a rugged man of the world, and he’d naturally have to have range.
Clive Owen is a talented actor, just look at Children of Men or Closer. He’d have to work on his American accent, though.
Miss Misery
The series femme fatale was once a class valedictorian and all around goody-two-shoes,
Gretchen MacDonald became afflicted with a condition that saw her withering away with no chance of a cure. Gretchen eventually discovered she's capable of rejuvenation, even growing stronger than before, by committing acts she deemed wrong.
Hard drugs, pointless violence, sordid sex; those are the things that keep Miss Misery going.
Misery was the first character I cast, but it wasn’t Ms. Blunt at the time. Originally I’d envisioned Angelina Jolie, as she has that sizzling attractiveness to her that characterizes Misery, and god knows she can act the role of a headcase. But then I considered the risk of it becoming another star vehicle, as it often happens. There’s also the matter of her having played a very similar character in her last CBM.
Blunt is similarly dead gorgeous, she can definitely play a cruel character, and isn’t likely to steal the spotlight.
However, Emily Blunt had backed out of playing Black Widow in Iron Man II and passed on playing Peggy Cater in Captain America as well as Rachel Dawes, possibly. I don’t know if she had reasons for those choices or if she feels CBMs are beneath her, hopefully it is the prior as she would do the part great justice.
Tao
"He may not look like much but he's one of the scariest mother******s ever created. It's not like he's some psycho-killer, though. He's more like brain surgeon, only his voice is the scalpel. Tao doesn't rip your guts out, he makes you rip them out on your own."
Cruise is tentatively attached to produce and star (though that is far from a sure thing), but he’d make a far better Tao. Who amongst Hollywood’s leading men is creepy and charismatic enough to play the tactically augmented organism?
John Lynch
"John Lynch... Another complete bastard. Four years ago, Lynch was one of the top men at International Operations, a covert government organization that made the CIA look like the IRS..."
I will admit, Oldman doesn’t look like Lynch aside from being a middle aged white man, nor has he played a similar character to my recollection. But come on! Gary Oldman playing a character that is for all intents and purposes a telepathic Nick Fury? You know you want it!
Peter Grimm
"Peter Grimm. The one person I know for sure who’d like to watch me take a fall. Who’d like to be the one doing the pushing."
Genocide Jones
"[Genocide Jones]'s more than just a hair-trigger bad-ass... In fact, sometime I think he's like a living embodiment of black humor. He told me once that he chose his codename because sometimes he really just wanted to kill everybody."
Jones is your typical boisterous bruiser, only evil. Mostly. The role requires an actor who can be at once imposing, vicious and loveable. Ideally, Durand would bulk a bit more, even though he is already towering and pretty ripped. Please no Blob-esque bodysuit, though.
Sir Malcolm Jones
"His name is Sir Malcolm Jones, and he used to be at I.O. a long time ago. I've actually heard the name, from my father, I think...... After his time at I.O. he worked as a consultant for MI6, which probably explains how an American national ended up being knighted.”
Veronica St. James
"Her name was Veronica St. James and in another life we were engaged."
For Carver’s love of a past life, you need someone far less imposing and homely in comparison with Misery, but also instantly likeable to highlight how changed Carver has become through his interactions with her.
Cole Cash
"…Cole Cash, the best sharp-shooter on the base, the smart-mouth brawler always one pussy-hair away from the brig. In some circles, he's even considered a super-hero... He and Tao were both in the WildCATS at some point, before everyone knew what Tao was really about."
Marc Slayton
If Lynch is Nick Fury, then Slayton is his Dugan. He served under Lynch with Cash in special forces before working with him in I.O.
While I was googling for an image of Mr. Bean, I came to learn he’s doing a director-to-DVD prequel of 2008’s Death Race. The man used to play Bond villains, Fellowship of the Ring members and Richard f’n Sharpe, and now he’s making a bargain-bin prequel to a Jason Statham movie. Good lord!
Though Sam Raimi is no slouch, my choice for director would be Ridley Scott.
Blade Runner. ‘Nuff said.
Some of those characters, nominally Tao, Lynch, Slaton and Cash are going to be problematic, as those characters don’t belong to Warner Bros. It is possible they may circumvent those issues by renaming the characters and altering them and their powers so that they’re different but essentially the same, but I’m not sure. Anyway, that’s my cast. It took a lot of thinking and I feel it is the best I’ve done. I hope it was to your liking and I hope we see at least some of them on the big screen someday.
Stay tuned for further fan casts of lesser known comics. My next one will be quite exhaustive, not to mention…
Extraordinary.