The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion [Hardcover]

Mark Cotta Vaz (Author)

Book Description

Will Eisner’s classic comics character makes the leap to the screen in this spectacular new live-action movie written and directed by Frank Miller (Sin City, 300), and starring Gabriel Macht as The Spirit, Samuel L. Jackson as his psychotic arch-nemesis The Octopus, and Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson as alluring femmes fatales.

In Central City, one man fights crime using nothing but his wits and his fists. He wears a mask, a suit and a fedora, and he is known only as The Spirit...

This stunning volume, with director’s commentary, contains interviews with the cast and the crew, color photos & production art, and scores of Frank Miller sketches, plus excerpts from the screenplay.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"* "Frank Miller is taking THE SPIRIT into the greatest comic book film noir we're likely to ever see." Ain't It Cool News"

About the Author

Mark Cotta Vaz is one of the world’s foremost author of movie ‘making of’ books. His informed, incisive, and highly entertaining writing has graced titles including Behind the Mask of Spider-Man, The Art of Finding Nemo, The Art of Batman Begins, and his acclaimed history of matte painting in movies, The Invisible Art.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Titan Books (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845768329
• ISBN-13: 978-1845768324
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 1 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,176,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Cotta Vaz is the author of over twenty-one books, including four New York Times bestsellers. His recent works include Mythic Vision: The Making of Eragon, The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion, and the biography Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong, which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a very good production diary, December 3, 2008

By 

Parka (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion (Hardcover)

Length:: 0:24 Mins

This is a hardcover book with no dust jacket. It's thick and the paper stock is good.

Included are many stories on the production process, Will Eisner's comic panels, behind the scenes photography on set, film stills and movie storyboards. The pages are well laid out and literally soaked with high resolution photos.

Mark Cotta Vaz has provided an in-depth writeup into the production process. The book starts all with a little history of Will Eisner and The Spirit, and goes on to talk about the process of making the movie. There are many interesting things to read, like how the studios negotiated the contract with Will Eisner, the casting of characters, shooting in front of the green screen, shooting different parts of the movies, death and rebirth of The Spirit on the movie and more.

While I'm reading this now, the movie has yet to be released. But looking at the images from the book, I've no doubt it's going to be amazing. The Sin City shooting style influence is strong, the great compositions, strong silhouettes and a limited colour palette. Oh, and add a strong cast -- Samuel L Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlet Johansson etc -- too.

This book is more of a production diary or a making-of book, well written and researched by Mark Cotta Vaz. It's highly recommended for fans of The Spirit, movie or comic.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smooth book for Will Eisner's The Spirit, September 10, 2010

By 

Winston Blakely (bronx, n.y. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion (Hardcover)

This is a very good production book. I enjoyed all the storyboards
and behind the scene stuff. And it was great seeing some of the
classic Will Eisner Spirit art pages as well.I mainly got this
as a reference book, since I am artist who likes the pulp era
and classic comic characters and strips. Yet, I recommend it
regardless, because of all the beautiful photography and artwork.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent inside look at the making of the movie., January 18, 2010

By 

Michael Gmirkin (Beaverton, Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion (Hardcover)

For those of you who wanted to know how it was done and why it was done, and see some pretty pictures in the meanwhile, this is probably the book for you.

It's a good accompaniment to the special features on the Special Edition DVD: "Green World" and "Miller on Miller." Basically it's a production diary detailing the thought processes, costuming and technology that went in to creating The Spirit.

After Sin City, Miller and Rodriguez again teamed up to produce The Spirit, based on a different comic series, obviously. But they used much the same process, technology and visual style. It's a very reductionist / minimalist visual style, and quite distinctive.

This book steps you through the what, why, how and who, perhaps a bit of the why, too.

Thus far, I've loved this book and will probably re-read it a few times. Might have to see if they have a similar visual companion to Sin City (the movie), though the extensive bonus features on the recut / extended Sin City release are quite good.

If you like the movie and want to know how they got from point A to point B, this seems like a pretty entertaining way to find out. If you just like film production trivia, you'll probably also like this book. Overall, I thought it was great!