Duncan Jones on Why He's Bringing His Mooniverse Series to a Close with the Graphic Novel MADI
Director Duncan Jones made his feature directorial debut with the fantastic 2009 film Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. He followed it up with a second part nearly a decade later, with the 2018 film called Mute that debuted on Netflix. Now he is looking to close the gap between his second and final installments in what he calls the Mooniverse, with a graphic novel instead of a film, titled Madi.
We previously reported that Jones started a Kickstarter to develop Madi, which he is creating with writer Alex de Campi and artists Glenn Fabry, Simon Bisley, Duncan Fegredo, and Pia Guerra.
Here’s the synopsis:
Madi Preston, a veteran of Britain’s elite special operations J-Squad unit, is burnt out and up to her eyeballs in debt. She and the rest of her team have retired from the military but are now trapped having to pay to service and maintain the technology put into them during their years of service. They’re working for British conglomerate Liberty Inc as mercenaries, selling their unique ability to be remote controlled by specialists while in the field, and the debts are only growing as they get injured completing missions. We meet Madi as she decides she’s had enough. She will take an off-the-books job that should earn her enough to pay out her and her sister, but when the piece of tech she’s supposed to steal turns out to be a kid, and she suddenly blacks out…she finds herself on the run from everyone she’s ever known. In a globe-spanning adventure from Shanghai to Soho, Madi has to stay one step ahead of the giant corporations closing in on her from all sides.
Jones recently talked to Screen Rant about the decision to end the series with a graphic novel:
“I think the reality is that in the world of IP driven content, it’s damn hard to finance an indie at a big-budget level…and if you know my stuff, you know its always going to be a little off the beaten path,” he said. “That said, Madi is a big, old-fashioned action story. The beauty of telling it through a graphic novel is that I needn’t make any concessions to budget or to shooting schedule. No worries over stuntmen getting hurt. No worries about seeking a four-quad balancing act. Instead, I get to experience the very real thrill of learning how some of the best people in the world of comics do their visual ‘floor set.’ That run of visual gymnastics that adds a soundtrack through pictures. Madi is what Alex and I wanted it to be, but it’s also what the amazing roster of artists we are working with conjured up. And being a Brit who was brought up reading 2000 AD, I am getting to work with some of the legendary artists I grew up loving.”
I loved the movie Moon, but I honestly had no idea there was a sequel. So I guess I will be checking out Mute and looking forward to Madi, which will be hitting shelves in November of 2020. Will you be picking up a copy?