‘Opus’ Movie May Be in the Works

Posted on August 18, 2006 by Brad Guigar

‘Opus’ Movie May Be in the Works

This bodes ill…

[Editor & Publisher] Will Opus the penguin be starring in a movie?

Alan Gardner reported on his DailyCartoonist.com blog that the ComingSoon.net site listed a film, called “Opus: The Last Christmas,” that’s tentatively slated for theatrical release on Dec. 19, 2008.

ComingSoon.net said the animated movie would be written and directed by Berkeley Breathed, who does the “Opus” comic strip for the Washington Post Writers Group.

The Opus character first appeared in the 1980s in Breathed’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Bloom County” comic. Read more.

I stand second to no one — no one. in my esteem for Berke Breathed’s Bloom County.

Bloom County.

Bloom County. Not Outland. Not Opus.

Bloom County.

The news of an Opus movie is somewhat a disappointment. See, Bloom County was a beautiful perfection that I got to see played out day after day after day in the eighties. My subscription to the Detroit Free Press in college was bought solely for that six-inch-by-two-inch plot of the comics page. It was my ritual and my obsession.

When a reader compares my comic to Bloom County, it’s like the feeling marathon runners feel as the finish line ribbon snaps across their chest.

Without the dry heaves.

Which is why I don’t want to see this movie made.

Every attempt by Breathed to recapture that magic has only served to tarnish and diminish those happy memories of tearing through the Freep to find my daily dose. Outland was pale and lifeless. Opus makes Outland look masterful.

An Opus movie?

I just don’t think my memories can sustain such a blow.