From Hell (film)

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For the 1998 novel, see From Hell

From Hell

Directed by	The Hughes Brothers
Produced by	Jane Hamsher Don Murphy
Written by	Terry Hayes (screenwriter) Rafael Yglesias (screenwriter) Alan Moore (graphic novel) Eddie Campbell (graphic novel)
Starring	Johnny Depp Heather Graham Ian Holm Robbie Coltrane Ian Richardson Jason Flemyng
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	September 8, 2001
Running time	122 min.
Language	English
Budget	~ USD 35,000,000
IMDb profile

From Hell is a 2001 film based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. It was directed by the Hughes Brothers, and first released on September 8, 2001 at the Venice Film Festival.

This film has been criticised for altering many details of the source (such as changing Frederick Abberline from a hardworking, conflicted police officer into a psychic who induces visions via opium) and remaking the complex story into a whodunit, with Eddie Campbell stating, "Anything that meant anything was ditched. Like, the first thing we decided was that we don't want this to be a whodunit."^[1] It received mixed reviews and performed rather poorly at the box office, earning only $31.6 million in domestic receipts for a budget of $35 million. However, the accuracy and attention to detail in the re-creation of Whitechapel and Spitalfields (based on period photographs) is very impressive.

As has become his practice with film adaptations of his works, Alan Moore declined 20th Century Fox's offer to collaborate with the screenwriters on the script.

Another difference between the comic and movie involved a dispute between Moore and Campbell. In the appendix to the comics, Moore reveals that he and his co-author had strong disagreements about the personality of Queen Victoria - namely, Moore believed she was quite capable of ordering cold-blooded murders, while Campbell insisted she must have worked through an intermediary. Although Moore had his viewpoint presented in the comic, in the movie, Victoria uses an intermediary, Lord Salisbury. In this and other respects the film is closer to being a remake of the 1978 Jack the Ripper thriller Murder by Decree than an adaptation of the graphic novel.