A celebrated comic book writer and unique individual, Alan Moore has written some of the greatest comic book stories of all time, like V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke, all of which have inevitably led to ambitious attempts at film adaptations.
Moore infamously does not believe that his comic books can be properly made into films, and has many opinions on them. In an interview with CBR.com back in 2005, Moore said that "after the films came out, I began to feel increasingly uneasy, I have a dwindling respect for cinema as it is currently expressed."
6 From Hell (2001) - "It had been a bad idea to watch it after all."
Considered one of Moore's greatest stories, From Hell was a graphic novel he created with artist Eddie Campbell over the course of nine years until the full collection was published in 1999. Two years later, the graphic novel was adapted into the first film based on Moore's works. Starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham, the film wasn't well-received and was what led Moore down the path of disliking film adaptations of his work and distancing himself from them.
Excerpt from a phone interview with Ian Winterton for Empire Magazine, Moore gave his two cents on the film: "I think I got ten minutes into it and realized that it had been a bad idea to watch it after all. I thought the trailer was enough but I thought I should at least try to be fair. I just thought it was a travesty, so I turned it off. I’m the last person who could be fair about a film like that. There didn’t seem to be any point either tormenting myself or being unfairly uncritical about a film that, obviously, isn’t going to be like the book."
5 The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) - "Quatermain's character was thrown out the window on the whim of an actor."
Moore's comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which he and artist Kevin O'Neill started publishing in 1999, was adapted into a feature-length film in 2003, much to the chagrin of Moore. Loosely based on Volume One of the series, which focuses on Victorian Era literary characters put into a Justice League-like team, the film was notoriously panned and Moore had issues with the film, particularly with changes made to the character Allan Quatermain, played by the late Sean Connery. In an MTV.com interview, where he criticized the character changes in From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moore said, "But Sean Connery didn't want to play him as a drug-addled individual. So the main part of Quatermain's character was thrown out the window on the whim of an actor."
The final straw, however, was the lawsuit that Moore was roped into alongside 20th Century Fox over plagiarism claims of the film's screenplay (of which Moore had no part in) requiring him to give a ten-hour deposition. In a 2008 interview with CBR.com, Moore said, "They seemed to believe that the head of 20th Century Fox called me up and persuaded me to steal this screenplay, turning it into a comic book which they could then adapt back into a movie, to camouflage petty larceny." From then on, Moore no longer wanted his name attached to any more film adaptations of his work.
4 Constantine (2005) - "Well, take my name off of it."
Based on the character Moore had introduced in The Saga of Swamp Thing #37 with  Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben, John Constantine made his feature-film debut in the 2005 film starring Keanu Reeves and Shia LaBeouf. This version of Constantine was a very loose interpretation as he wasn't British or blonde. By the time Constantine was in pre-production, Moore had washed his hands of Hollywood and insisted that any money be sent to the artists of his work.
In a BBC Radio 4 interview broadcast in early 2005 - which was transcribed by the staff at CBR.com - Moore's attitude towards the film seemed to be one of principled indifference: "[...]Â I got a phone call from Karen Berger the next Monday, she's an editor at DC Comics, and she said, "Yeah, we're going to be sending you a huge amount of money before the end of the year because they're making this film of your Constantine character with Keanu Reeves." I said, "Right, OK. Well, take my name off of it and distribute my money amongst the other artists. I felt, well, that was difficult, but I did it and I feel pretty good about meself."
3 V For Vendetta (2005) - "...they offended me over the V for Vendetta film."
Out of all of Moore's work, the film adaptation that he had the strongest reaction to in terms of moving away from the source material was 2005's V for Vendetta. The original graphic novel, which was created with artists David Lloyd and Tony Weare, was originally a ten-issue serial from 1982 to 1989 about a dystopian United Kingdom where the anarchist revolutionary V works to bring down the country's fascist state. In the same MTV.com interview where he talked about Sean Connery, Moore said, "I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it," when asked if V for Vendetta could be the one good adaptation of his work.
Despite the film being an overall commercial and critical success, Moore balked at the film's lack of the terms "anarchy" or "fascism" and felt that it had been too different from its British roots: "It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country." Moore also took issue with his former employer, DC Comics, and the rights over his work, telling MustardWeb.org, "Kevin O'Neill and I own League [of Extraordinary Gentlemen], which is why I was able to take it away from DC with such a flourish when they offended me over the V for Vendetta film."
2 Watchmen (2009) - "I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."
A film adaptation of Moore and Dave Gibbon's highly influential graphic novel Watchmen had been more-or-less in the works for decades. Inspired by characters from Charlton Comics (which DC Comics had acquired at the time), the story deals with a world on the brink of nuclear decimation and a hard look at the reality of costumed crimefighters. While Moore asserts that he has never and will never watch the film, he gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times in 2008 he said, “I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."
In the same interview, Moore also talked about his distaste for Hollywood films, saying, "It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I, for one, am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else?"
1 Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) - "I have never really liked it much as a work."
Along with writing Swamp Thing and Superman for DC Comics in the 1980s, Moore also wrote the far-reaching one-shot graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke with Brian Bolland. The Killing Joke is infamous for its origin story for The Joker and for the character's sadistic attack on Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, leaving her paralyzed. While the adaptation brought Mark Hamill out of his voice-acting retirement of the Joker, the movie was met with mixed reviews as a prologue and sexual relationship between Batgirl and Batman was added.
In a Goodreads.com Q&A, Moore said that he has no interest in the original book or the adaption: "I have asked for my name to be removed from it, and for any monies accruing from it to be sent to the artist, which is my standard position with all of this...material. Actually, with The Killing Joke, I have never really liked it much as a work – although I of course remember Brian Bolland’s art as being absolutely beautiful – simply because I thought it was far too violent and sexualized a treatment for a simplistic comic book character like Batman and a regrettable misstep on my part."