Why Has There Never Been A Film Made About The Gunpowder Plot?

T

talongirl57

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As its bonfire night and we are marking the gunpowder plot i wondered why there has never been a film made about the subject. Surely the gunpowder plot and Guy Fawkes would be good material for a major film. As far as I know it has never been the subject of a film or even tv programme. Im sure someone will now prove me wrong on this and name half a dozen films which have been made on the subject but I cant think af any. Anyway if this did go ahead I nominate Johnny Depp to play Guy fawkes, directed by Tim Burton and of course it would be released on November 5th!! How about the title? Perhaps Fawkes or how about Bang!
 
V For Vendetta is the closest you can get, I can't think of any films that concentrate on the actual event, well none come to mind anyway. Television I can, but not films.
 
It's a British tradition, American producers/studios wouldn't be willing to stump up the cash, and most American's, who buy the most tickets wouldn't have a clue what it was all about. Maybe!!
 
Guy Fawkes and his co-consipirators were subjected to some pretty gruesome torture... I'm sure the story would appeal to Mel Gibson.
 
The problem with a Guy Fawkes film is that there's no hero. I don't think you could portray a man who tried to murder 1000 odd people as a hero. And he was only caught be chance at the last minute so it's not as if there's any heroic police officer.
 
Actually it's believed that there was an informer, and the government agents knew all about the plot, so it wasn't just a case of somebody conveniently finding out at the last minute.
 
There was a documentary on Channel 4 a couple of years ago when 36 barrels of gunpowder were detonated below a replica of the house of commons just to see what would actually have happened if Guy Fawkes had succeeded in lighting the blue touch paper and standing well away.

There was total devastation, and everybody who would have been present in the building would have been killed, the country would have been torn apart by a civil war with numerous powerful families struggling to gain power, and the political, social and economic structure of England would have been changed forever.

YES what a great movie it would have made!!

Mel, how about it then??
 
There was a two-part TV mini-series in 2004, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot, written by Jimmy McGovern, with a great cast including Michael Fassbender as Guy Fawkes, as well as Robert Carlyle, Tim McInnerny and, Kevin McKidd - it was about the lives and times of Mary Queen of Scots and James 1 as well as the gunpowder plot. Unfortunately I missed this at the time. I was hoping it might be repeated somewhere this year to mark Bonfire Night, but sadly not.
 
Maybe it's one of those things the British establishment themselves don't like being touched upon too much. Most people just know the kiddified story of the gunpowder plot, or nothing at all. Maybe it wouldn't do anybody any good if a lot of people started thinking about the whole situation in more depth.

It is pretty amusing that we, as a nation, celebrate a plot to murder 1,000 people and that we get kiRAB to dress up dummies that represent a real person being thrown on a bonfire. This is marked by more people in this country than any religious event (bar Christmas Day) Imagine what people from other countries think when they see us burn a Guy.
 
"IN A WORLD... WHERE ONE MAN'S GOD IS ANOTHER MAN'S DEVIL... ONLY ONE SHALL REIGN SUPREME...

"Guido, no!"
"Get out of my way. This monster's ruled two countries for long enough. It enRAB now!"

"36 BARRELS OF GUNPOWDER, ONE FLINT AND THE WORLD WILL BE CHANGED... FOREVER."
 
Now that could be an interesting approach for a movie. Alternate history. Start the movie with the plot succeeding, and then go forward from there and explore the differences in history.
 
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