Honestly, if you grew up in the early 2000s, you probably remember the posters. Sean Connery looking grizzled, a giant silver submarine, and a title that felt like it promised the greatest crossover event in history. This was years before the MCU made us take superhero teams for granted. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie—or LXG if you’re into that early-aughts shorthand—was supposed to be a massive franchise starter. Instead, it became one of the most infamous "career-killers" in Hollywood history.
It's a weird one.
The film adapts Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s legendary comic book series, but "adapts" is a strong word here. It’s more like the movie took the names of the characters, put them in a blender with a bunch of CGI explosions, and hoped for the best. You’ve got Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man (well, an invisible man), Mina Harker, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Oh, and because it was a big-budget American movie, they threw in Tom Sawyer as a Secret Service agent. Because why not?
The Conflict That Broke Sean Connery
The production of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie was, by all accounts, a disaster. It’s the reason Sean Connery retired. That’s not a rumor; he was so miserable during the shoot in Prague that he basically said, "I'm done." He famously clashed with the director, Stephen Norrington. At one point, rumor had it they almost came to blows.
Imagine being on a set where the star and the director aren't speaking. Now add a massive flood. In 2002, Prague suffered some of the worst flooding in a century. It destroyed over $7 million worth of sets. The "Nautilus" was basically underwater, and not in the cool, submarine way. This pushed the schedule back, hiked the budget, and made everyone’s mood even worse.
Connery was used to the old-school way of filmmaking. Norrington was a visual effects guy, a bit more eccentric, a bit more "experimental." The friction was palpable. When the movie finally came out in 2003, critics weren't kind. It felt disjointed. It felt like a movie that had been edited by people who were tired of looking at it.
Why the Fans of the Comic Were Furious
If you haven’t read Alan Moore’s original work, you might think the movie is just a goofy steampunk action flick. But the source material is dark. Like, really dark. In the comics, these "heroes" are mostly terrible people. They are drug addicts, murderers, and narcissists forced together by a government that’s just as bad as they are.
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The movie sanitized everything.
Mina Harker, who is the actual leader of the team in the comics, was turned into a "vampire superhero" because The Matrix and Blade were popular at the time. They added Dorian Gray specifically to have a romantic subplot. The tone shifted from a gritty, Victorian deconstruction of literature to a Saturday morning cartoon.
The Visuals: A Mixed Bag of Steampunk Gold
Despite the chaos, there’s something about the aesthetic of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie that still holds up if you’re a fan of the steampunk vibe. The Nautilus is genuinely gorgeous. It’s this massive, ornate "Sword of the Ocean" that looks like it was designed by a master jeweler.
Then there’s Mr. Hyde.
In an era where everyone was starting to use crappy CGI for big monsters, LXG used a mix of practical suits and digital enhancement. Jason Flemyng spent seven hours a day in makeup to play Hyde. The result is a creature that feels heavy. When he hits something, you feel it. It’s way more grounded than the rubbery CGI monsters we got in other movies from 2003.
But then you have the car.
Nemo has this six-wheeled white convertible that can somehow drive through the narrow, flooded streets of Venice at 60 miles per hour. It’s ridiculous. It looks like a toy meant to be sold at Target. That’s the movie in a nutshell: one second it’s a cool, moody Victorian thriller, and the next it’s a bizarre toy commercial.
The Missing "Extraordinary" Characters
A lot of people ask why the movie changed the lineup. In the comics, the Invisible Man is Hawley Griffin—a literal rapist and murderer. Obviously, Disney-owned studios weren't going to put that in a PG-13 movie. So, they created "Rodney Skinner," a thief who stole the formula.
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And then there’s the legal stuff. The studio didn't have the rights to use certain versions of characters. It’s a mess of copyright law and creative cowardice. By trying to make the team "likable," they stripped away what made them interesting in the first place.
The Venice Sequence: A Lesson in Logic Defiance
We have to talk about the Venice scene. It’s the centerpiece of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie. The villain, "The Fantom," wants to sink Venice by using bombs to trigger a domino effect of collapsing buildings.
The physics? Non-existent.
The logic? Flawless, if you are ten years old.
The League has to race through the city to stop the explosions. It’s high-octane, it’s loud, and it features Sean Connery shooting a rifle at a target blocks away while standing on a moving vehicle. It is Peak Cinema, but maybe for the wrong reasons. It represents that specific window in time when Hollywood thought "bigger" always meant "better," regardless of whether the story made sense.
The Legacy of a "Failure"
Did it actually fail?
Well, it made about $179 million on a $78 million budget. That’s not a "flop" in the traditional sense, but it wasn't the franchise-starter Fox wanted. It was overshadowed by Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which came out the same year and did the "supernatural adventure" thing much, much better.
But here’s the thing. There is a generation of people who love this movie. It’s a "guilty pleasure" staple. It has a certain earnestness that modern, cynical superhero movies lack. It’s trying so hard to be cool.
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What We Can Learn From LXG Today
Looking back at the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie, it serves as a cautionary tale about "creative differences." When the star, the director, and the studio are all making three different movies, the audience can tell.
If you're going to revisit it, don't go in expecting a faithful adaptation of Alan Moore. You’ll be miserable. Instead, watch it as a relic of the early 2000s. It’s a time capsule of practical effects, leather trench coats, and the dying gasp of the old-school action star era.
How to Experience the Story Properly
If the movie left a bad taste in your mouth, or if you’re just curious about what could have been, here is the path forward:
- Read the first two volumes of the graphic novel. It is a masterpiece of world-building and literary references. You’ll see why people were so upset with the movie.
- Watch the "Making of" documentaries. The behind-the-scenes drama is honestly more compelling than the film itself. Hearing the crew talk about the floods and the tension is fascinating.
- Look for the references. The best part of the movie is the "blink and you'll miss it" nods to 19th-century literature. From Ishmael being Nemo's first mate to the portraits in the background, there is a lot of love put into the production design.
- Check out the "Invisible Man" makeup tests. If you’re into film tech, the way they handled the invisibility effects using blue screen suits was actually quite ahead of its time.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie isn't a "good" movie by traditional standards. It’s a beautiful, loud, chaotic mess. But in a world of polished, corporate-approved blockbusters, there’s something almost refreshing about a movie that’s this weird and this troubled.
It remains a definitive end to the career of one of the greatest actors of all time, and a strange footnote in the history of comic book cinema. If you haven't seen it in a decade, give it another shot on a rainy Sunday. Just don't expect it to make sense.
Next Steps for the LXG Curious
- Hunt down the "Nautilus" concept art: The designs by Carol Spier (who worked with David Cronenberg) are actually high-level art.
- Compare the "Mister Hyde" designs: Look at the 2003 Hyde versus the one in Van Helsing (2004) to see the difference between practical suits and early full-CGI characters.
- Explore the "Lost" sequel scripts: There were plans for a sequel involving a Martian invasion (based on the second volume of the comic), which sounds like it would have been absolutely insane.