MOVIE ADAPTATIONS What's here; what's to come

"V for Vendetta" is just the latest Hollywood adaptation of a graphic novel. Here are some successful (and less successful) movies inspired by graphic novels, as well as future films spinning off the genre.
"A History of Violence": This disturbing 2005 film landed on many critics' Top 10 lists. Entertaining and smart, it provocatively examines how a man's violent past rips apart his family's American Dream-like existence. Curiously, director David Cronenberg said he was unaware that the screenplay was based on a graphic novel until he began shooting it. He also reportedly whittled the script down, and the result is a taut, thinking-person's thriller, with Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello and William Hurt, who was nominated for a supporting-actor Oscar. (Released March 14 on DVD.)
"Road to Perdition": Director Sam Mendes followed up his Oscar-winning "American Beauty" with this moody, stylish adaptation of Max Allen Collins' and Richard Piers Rayner's work. In it, a hit man and father (Tom Hanks) uses both wits and weaponry to keep from being rubbed out by the mob. The violent, gorgeously photographed thriller is hard-nosed noir with a ham-fisted message about fathers and sons, but Jude Law makes it memorable as a psychopath who snaps pictures of the dead. (2002)
"Sin City": Without a doubt, this is landmark filmmaking, awesomely replicating the look, essence and spirit of a graphic novel. Director Robert Rodriguez does a great -- albeit gory -- job of bringing Frank Miller's pitch-black imagination to cinematic life. With Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke. (2005)
"Ghost World": Director Terry Zwigoff ("Bad Santa") brings Daniel Clowes' unsentimental comic series about a shiftless, bored high school grad named Enid (Thora Birch) to the screen with its acidic nature intact. The film is both funny and sad, stirring up unexpected emotions. Steve Buscemi is unforgettable as the target of Enid's plan to curb boredom, with Scarlett Johansson as her friend Rebecca. (2001)
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen": No wonder comic-book icon Alan Moore (who also penned "V for Vendetta") despises Hollywood. Everything that was innovative and distinctive about his series suffers from big-budget bloat in this action disaster. Sean Connery stars as Allan Quartermain, who is the go-to guy for several literary characters as they unite to foil the plans of a villain out to -- what else? -- control the world. Critics ripped it apart, but praised the source material. (2003)
"From Hell": Before "League," Moore witnessed Hollywood fumble its adaptation of this decade-in-the-making series following an opium-addicted investigator's manhunt for Jack the Ripper. The film's greatest asset is Johnny Depp, but even he can't overcome the script and Heather Graham as a Whitechapel prostitute. (2001)
The following is a sampling of other graphic novels being adapted for the screen:
"Bonesaw": This shocker based on the work of Rob Moran finds horrific characters from a female author's novel leaping off the page and into the real world. (2007)
"Lone Wolf and Cub": Darren Aronofsky ("Requiem for a Dream") will likely bring his edginess to this action drama about a samurai who becomes an assassin. (2008)
"Sin City 2" and "Sin City 3": The $75 million the original made at the U.S. box office inspired Rodriguez to go back to the drawing board not just once, but twice. (2006, "Sin City 2")
"300": Zack Snyder, director of the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, helms this Frank Miller saga set in 480 B.C. and anchored around a David vs. Goliath invasion in Greece. (2006)
"Torso": Straitlaced Eliot Ness, immortalized in the movie "The Untouchables," investigates a string of slayings in Cleveland. This adaptation of a popular graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko looks like a winner, since it will be directed by David Fincher ("Seven," the upcoming "Zodiac"). (2007)
"Watchmen": Director Paul Greengrass of "The Bourne Supremacy" fame oversees this eagerly awaited adaptation of another Moore graphic novel. It involves a group of former superheroes banding together to find a killer who rubbed out one of their kind. (2006)