I don’t exactly have a long history with comic strips, but the one I got attached to, i pretty much stay attached to for life. My first real comic strip obsession was Far Side, after that was my favorite comic strip of all time… best there is, was and ever will be, Calvin and Hobbes. But a couple of years ago I got a new comic strip obsession… DILBERT!
The thing about Dilbert is that it’s not only gut wrenchingly hilarious, it’s also fiercely intelligent and very reflective of the reality in the modern corporate world. The characters are hilarious and you can identify each one with someone you know in real life. It’s gold.
Ok, on to the topic at hand. Looks like Chris Columbus (the man who directed Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rent, Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone and a score of others) has picked up the theatrical rights to Dilbert. The folks over at Moviehole give us this:
The rights to the popular cartoon previously laid with Columbia – who produced the TV series – who planned to turn the office dweeb into a feature film a couple of years back. Never happened. With Columbus on board, the film will be now be shot, tinned and released by Warner Bros.
The comics tell of a Cubicle denizen named Dilbert who toils away at Path-E-Tech which makes undefined products. The focus is on his survival amongst a moronic boss, hostile co-workers and his malevolent pet, Dogbert. Daniel Stern (“City Slickers”) provided the voice of the character in the series.
Now here’s the thing. Dilbert is pure gold. But, it’s gold on the comic strip. I’m not sold that it can be properly translated to the big screen at all. There was a cartoon version of Dilbert, and it was horrible (in my opinion anyway). So on the one hand I LOVE that there’s going to be a Dilbert movie… buton the other hand i just don’t think it can be done right. I guess we’ll wait and see.
As a side note, I’d really like to see a Calvin and Hobbes movie too… but that also would be tough as hell to properly pull off.
