Guy Ritchie signs to direct ‘Lobo’ for Warner Bros.

After reinventing Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., director Guy Ritchie will next take a stab at his first comic book adaptation. According to the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Ritchie has signed on to direct Lobo based on the DC Comics’ anti-hero intergalactic bounty hunter character. Ritchie takes over for Doug Liman who had been previously attached to the project that producer Joel Silver has been developing for close to a decade. Hitfix.com quotes Ritchie saying, I’m not negative towards the idea of doing Lobo as a movie, per se.  I mean, since the early days of Ain’t It Cool, Warner Bros. has been talking about doing this. ‘

Unfortunately fans of the comic may be disappointed in discovering that Warner Bros. insists on a PG-13 action movie considering the comic itself is geared to a mature audience. Lobo is a character who chops away at his blue cigars, curses left and right, dressed like a member of the rock band Kiss, and can be as overly aggressive like Wolverine and The Punisher. The comic book is bloody and violent, vulgar and sexist and pg-13 doesn’t fit into Lobo’s world. It’s strange that the studio wants to tame down this picture for a general audience considering not too many people know of it in the first place. Even in the comic book world Lobo is generally dismissed or hated and his own series never found true success.