Comic character modeled after Rupert Everett to be played by ... someone far less interesting

Here's some disappointing news for fans of Rupert Everett and comics purists: the Italian series Dylan Dog, whose title character was modeled after the dashing gay British actor, will be making its way to screens with someone other than Everett in the lead role. Who will be filling his shoes?

Brandon Routh.

Yeah. "That Superman guy".

Granted, the fact that a studio has banked on a current superhero action movie star to play the lead in its new comics-based film is not entirely surprising. But it's a bummer. I mean, really -- if you were the physical inspiration for a character that is being translated for the screen and you don't get the part, there's something wrong with the way things work.

Interestingly, Everett has played a dark Italian existential horror hero before, in Michele Soavi's wonderful Cemetery Man (based on the Dellamorte Dellamore novel by Tiziano Scalvi, the same man who created Dylan Dog). In that movie Everett got to kick undead butt while looking smoking hot half-naked, and although he is surely a little longer in the tooth now I think he could still pull off this kind of role with ease and class.