Moore’s been pretty consistently burned to date: so far, movie adaptations from his work have been notoriously faithless and/or unsuccessful. Indeed, the history of Moore adaptations has been so spotty one wonders if they’ve damaged his reputation any–I never got around to seeing League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but the reviews and word-of-mouth were so terrible it’s not hard to imagine people passing on the comic because they think it’s based on a movie they heard was a stinker.

(It’s kinda like the regrets I have that it took me so long to discover that Steve Gerber’s Howard The Duck comics from the ’70s were made of 100% Awesome. It’s only this year, in fact, after I read obituaries of Gerber that raved about the original Howard, that I bought a collection and discovered that Howard The Duck, the viciously satirical, skeptically self-aware, and ahead of it’s time by twenty years comic book had absolutely nothing to do with Howard The Duck the atrociously bad and ridiculously incompetent movie, aside from the fact both have a duck.)

V For Vendetta was a box office success, and Moore refused to have his name on the credits. What will make him happy, I suspect, is if the film turns out to be a faithful adaptation–tho’ at this point “faithful” for Moore might mean the movie has to track the book line-for-line and frame-for-panel, which is pretty much impossible.

Either way, he’d be a dumbass not to cash the checks. Most comics writers practically starve.

I haven’t followed this at all, but you can strike the word “nearly” from your comment. Every movie, even low budget ones, look for “clearance conflicts”. The major studios, are aware of every possible pitfall. (The clearance report for the movie I’m on includes “Dr. Jake Lever”, we suggest changing to Jay, middle initial R. or similar. Three Jake Levers in Washington D.C. area…one is M.D.)

Yeah, Warner knew.

Sleaziness on several sides, yes. But business as usual in Tinseltown.