The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also promoted as LXG, is a 2003 steampunk[5]/dieselpunk superhero film loosely based on the first volume of the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill.

It was directed by Stephen Norrington and stars Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, and Richard Roxburgh.

It draws on the works of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Ian Fleming, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Gaston Leroux, and Mark Twain, albeit all adapted for the film.

[7] In 1899, a terrorist group led by the "Fantom" robs the Bank of England for Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints of Venice's foundations, kidnaps German scientists, and destroys a Zeppelin factory in Berlin.

To prevent this, M forms the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and recruits Quatermain, Captain Nemo, vampire scientist Mina Harker, and invisible thief Rodney Skinner.

The League travels to the London Docklands to recruit Dorian Gray, Mina's former lover who is immortal due to a missing cursed portrait.

Sawyer uses one of Nemo's automobiles to signal him to launch a missile at a key building to stop the destruction while Quatermain confronts the Fantom, who is unmasked as M before escaping again.

Jekyll and Hyde join forces to drain the flooded sections while Skinner secretly messages the League, informing them he snuck aboard the exploration pod.

They soon regroup with Skinner, who reveals M took the kidnapped scientists' families hostage to force them to mass-produce M's work and he intends to sell a sample case to competing nations.

As the League ensure Quatermain is buried in Kenya, they recall how a witch doctor promised him that Africa would never let him die before agreeing to continue using their powers for good.

[citation needed] In 2003, Larry Cohen and Martin Poll sued 20th Century Fox for intentionally plagiarizing their script Cast of Characters, which they had pitched to the studio between 1993 and 1996.

[27] Empire magazine criticized its exposition and lack of character depth, giving it two stars out of five, and asserting that it "flirts dangerously close with one-star ignominy".

[29] In an interview with The Times, Kevin O'Neill, illustrator of the comics, said he believed the film adaptation was a critical failure because it was not respectful of its source material.

Finally, O'Neill said that the movie's version of Allan Quatermain compared poorly to the character in the original comics, and that "the whole balance" was changed by "marginalizing Mina [Murray] and making her a vampire.

"[30] The comics' author, Alan Moore, has generally been dissatisfied with the films based on his works, but thought that the reputations of the originals would not be affected by the quality of the adaptations.

The Tracking Board reported in May 2015 that 20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment had agreed to develop a reboot, in hope of launching a franchise, and that a search was underway for a director.

[36] However, The Hollywood Reporter revealed in May 2022 that the reboot was back on track as a Hulu release, with Justin Haythe writing, and producer Don Murphy returning, alongside Susan Montford and Erwin Stoff of 3 Arts Entertainment.