Mark Millar Teases His Directorial Debut
Some great news for fans of Wanted and the upcoming Kick-Ass: comic book writer/creator Mark Millar has announced that he will be directing an original feature film very soon.
ComingSoon brings the heads up from Millar's own forum, and well - I'll let the man himself tell you what's up.
"Bet you didn't see THAT coming, laddies and lassies!
But this is one of several big surprises planned for next year and you'll hear a bit more about this in February when we start to release details. What is it? Who is it about? Well, that's all a secret for now, but I learned a lot from Kick-Ass and love having the same creative freedom I have with comics when I work in cinema. I never want to be a studio bitch and go in there pitching for them to love me. The closest I came to this was a couple of calls regarding Superman, but pretty much none of my plans ever revealed as I didn't like the idea of anyone nicking them.
Similarly, I don't like the idea of asking for funding and justifying scenes with the money-men so I'm doing what Matthew Vaughn did with Kick-Ass and just making it outside the system with private investors. The financing is all secured and the movie stands or falls on how good I can make it, doing what Matthew did and just selling it once completed.
As you can imagine, I couldn't be more excited. More as it happens, but this might just beat out War Heroes and American Jesus as my follow-ups to the Wanted and Kick-Ass movies. Have two other pictures about to go into development (and Wanted and Kick-Ass 2, of course), but I think you need to scare the Hell out of yourself every once in a while and something totally new like directing should do the trick.
The big question: Are you allowed to direct without wearing a baseball cap? Is it the modern version of the 70s BEARD?"
I'm a huge fan of filmmakers taking matters into their own hands and avoiding studio intervention during the making of a movie. It allows the audience to truly see the exact vision of the director; essentially, it's releasing the "Director's Cut" in theaters instead of having to shell out money to see it on DVD. Millar sounds like he's got a good grasp on the process, so it'll be interesting to see how his directorial debut turns out.
Millar was recently in talks with Warner Bros. regarding a reboot of the Superman franchise, but the studio ultimately passed on Millar's epic vision that would have spanned three films: beginning on Krypton and ending with Supes as the last being on Earth. Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of Millar's comic Kick-Ass made a big splash at Comic Con this year, surprising a lot of people and becoming one of the most talked-about films of the convention.
This news, of course, begs the question - what do you think he will be directing? The title of his forum post is "Millar to Direct Superhero Movie," so we will presumably see some spandex in there somewhere. Do you think it will be an untapped adaptation of one of his comics, or totally new material? Are you psyched to see Millar step behind the camera?