After about 36 hours of hype on Twitter, Mark Millar was finally able to make his big announcement last night on his forums that Tony Scott has signed on to direct the film version of Millar and Steve McNiven's Nemesis which has released two issues to date, with the last issue being release this past June.
Tony Scott is best known for his directorial work on such fine films as Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Beverly Hills Cop II, Crimson Tide, True Romance, The Taking of Pelham 123 and one of my personal favorite movies, Domino.
This is the next chapter of the creator-owned to movies success of Mark Millar, who say what you will about his comic books has proven his ability to turn comics into movies, and while they may not be super hits (Wanted and Kick-Ass), the movies are getting made and Millar and his art partners (this time around it's Steve McNiven) are getting nice big checks.
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Something about Millar, only two issues and boom! Movie deal. Someone better tell Leinil Yu to slow down on Superior
If you’ve seen the trailer for Tony Scott’s new ridiculous movie Unstoppable, you will know this is very bad news.
oh joy
Millar makes comics that are fun to read. And Scott makes movies that are fun to watch. They may not be particularly profound, original, or ground breaking, but they are consistently entertaining. I say this is a good pair and I’m excited to read/watch this project.
Days of Thunder! Yes.
*imdb.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they’re going to try to get Liam Neeson to play the police chief…
Considering Millar was throwing around names like Raimi and Ritchie earlier, this is kind of disappointing news. I thought Deja Vu was pretty ok though, so, y’know, alright.
haha
Domino is boss!
Actually, I’ve never met a Tony Scott film that isn’t watchable.
Wanted was a massive box office hit with $404,099,000 with a budget of $75 mil. That’s categorized as a "Super Hit."
Kick-Ass (my biopic) made $96,038,000 with a budget of 30 mil, also a hit. And an artistic hit with almost unanimous ifanboy posters claiming it their favorite comic movie this year.
Critics don’t mean anything, though both received favorable reviews.
I love True Romance.
Great. If this was 1984 then the director would be a big name.
Hey how about we actually get comics done Millard before you get a film done? Or how about now do comics at all? I prefer that actually.
@TNC- You mean like the 24 Ultimate Avengers comics he’s currently writing, which ships bi-monthly? 😉 Yeah, he’s really sittin’ around watching tv and drinking coffee. Btw, Ultimate Avengers is awesome!
What’s with the snide comments about Tony Scott? Dude makes great popcorn movies. Mark Millar is a crazy person, and Nemesis isn’t particularly "enjoyable," per say, but Scott’s involvement has me interested in a filmed version.
Does this mean Millar can stop writing Nemesis? I did not like that book. It screamed "I’m just writing this so it can be turned into a movie and make me real money!" Kick Ass was great. Wanted, not so much. This, I’m guessing is going to be along the lines of Wanted.
I wonder what it is about Millar that gets every single one of his books fast tracked into films, when other guys toil in development hell for years. I’m guessing he just knows how to talk to these movie execs in ways the other guys don’t. He’s able to get them excited about his concepts.
Good for Millar and McNiven! And I like Tony Scott, so this could be pretty cool
I don’t hold anything against Millar for turning his comics into movies. It’s a business after all. I’m just afraid that in twenty years we’ll look back at when the bottom fell out of comic book movies and be able to use Wanted and Nemesis as a prime example of movies that help kill the genre.
I could be over reacting though. I loved Kick-Ass.
I love Tony Scott, i think visually he is a very underrated director. The cinematography, editing, and camera movements in Man On Fire and Domino in particular are very innovative. He takes a very different approach to the american action film with almost a foreign arthouse film aesthetic. That and he directed True Romance so he will always have a special place in my heart.
I am sure Nemesis will at least have an interesting visual look but the book didn’t excite me much. it was a great concept with kind of a boring execution, so hopefully the movie gets to do more of it’s own thing. I would rather Tony work on something else though, and there not be a movie of this comic but that’s not going to happen.
malpractice, you’re talking about a book that has printed 2 issues to date. that’s like judging a movie 20 minutes in, as if you’d seen the whole project.
@asafager – They’ve been a pretty boring two issues though.
Maybe it’s just me but Millar’s recent work isn’t as dense as it used to be.
Nemesis feels like I’m skimming the storyboards for a tense action movie. I’m enjoying it and it only comes out rarely. As in, hopefully it’s done before 2011. Despite being only 4 issues. And starting in like April. :
Actually March!
I’m not sure what to think. I think Kick-Ass had enough of a fan-base to carry the movie, even tho it was put into production almost before the comic itself was written.
This feels similar to that, so that puts up a flag for me. I do like Scott tho, and visually, I’m sure it will be pretty stunning. I’m just not into how Millar writes nihilism as a parody, or satire, or whatever it is he’s trying to do. It leaves me feeling a little cold, and these last two issues haven’t done anything to sway me of that opinion.
McNiven’s art tho is very pretty on this book.
Both main charecters played by John Travolta.
Wait, somebody is using ‘good’ and ‘Tony Scott’ in the same sentence without using ‘not.
***ERROR***
***ERROR***
***DOES NOT COMPUTE****
Anyway, the question is, will it make Kick Ass look like shit?
@Kick-Ass: Millar’s Ultimate Avengers ships bi-WEEKLY, not bi-monthly. Such a mistake seems a result of you reading too many dumbed-down Mark Millar comics. It is a vicious cycle, because the more Mark Millar comics one reads, the more one’s brain atrophies, thus the more one is susceptible to reading back Mark Millar comics.
The guy used to be good like five, ten years ago.
Movies cost a lot of resources to produce. It’s really obscene, when you think about the effort and energy that goes into making such silly things. If only there were some environmental law that could be used to prevent most of them from being made.
Saying that movies pulled in more money than it took to produce them is strange logic. This is like bragging about ripping off poor people. It’s like saying "The robber did spend $10 in gas to drive to the people’s home, but then he stole $500 from them, so it’s okay." Most of these movies are about such idiotic things that they’re not worth bragging about and our society would be better off without them. People don’t need to be so obsessed with getting wall-to-wall cheap entertainment their whole lives long. Unfortunately, we will see where this constant drip-feed of pop culture garbage will lead. Mark Millar has found a way to sell out and profit from the masses’ stupidity. Wow, congratulations to him for doing something so wonderful.
Hey, let’s make froggulper the arbiter of good taste for the entire universe. He or she seems pretty reasonable.
Or maybe we could watch the movies that interest us and ignore the ones that don’t.
@ultimatehoratio – that would be far too easy a way to live.
Good to see the creators getting financial love, but this series is unproven to me as a comics fan. I wish he would finish series before he got them to be movies. Maybe then I’d be more excited.
I like Tony Scott, far more hit then miss for me, and even his misses are at least interesting. Least we forget this is the same film maker that brought us True Romance, Crimson Tide, Top Gun, and Man on Fire.
at this point millar should just start writing movies. in fact most of the people making comics should start making movies, then maybe we can get people making comics who actually care about the medium and who don’t jump at the chance to have their hard work turned into crappy movies.
@adickhead – Yeah, I’m sure a guy who has written nearly 200+ comics should be considered somone who "Doesn’t care about the comics medium." :0
@froggulper – oops, my mistake about Millar making bi-weekly comics. On everything else, you’re wrong.
It’s fine to disagree, but if you’re all gonna get snippy with each other over it, I’ll just kill the comments in here. Act like grownups, and if you’re not a grownup, go outside and play.
Josh, you’re also someone who’s said Millar doen’s care about comics, despite that he’s made them for about 20 years now, right?…you’re wrong! 😉
Its obvious the movie wasn’t greenlit on 2 published comics. I’m sure he has the entire script or a solid outline. He’s the hot writer in Hollywood right now…studios are interested in every idea he has right now…thats how that town works. You cash in while you can and hope it turns into a long career. Maybe if comics paid creators real money for their talents you would’t have so many people "jumping ship". What’s wrong with getting paid for your talents?
I still don’t see the reasoning of having your comics made into movies proving that you "don’t care about the comics medium" That just sounds like the "Sell Out" argument indie music kids use when their favorite band signs to a label and starts to have more than 10 fans.
Millar having the drive to adapt his comics to other mediums shows he cares more about his comics than anything. Wanting to share and expand his comics stories. The fact that he’s successful just shows that the source material is quality that large groups of people want to get made.
@Wally – Right about the "indie music kids" thing. Comes off as very whiny and envious.
@KA – Please don’t try to start fights with me. I’m not a part of this conversation, regardless of what you might think I said.
To all, if you can’t accept that other people have different opinions, you can go somwehere else.
I have yet to publish my first book, but let me tell you, if someone offered me money for a screenplay based on the idea or some sample chapters, I would SELL OUT IN A HEARTBEAT and do the money dance all the way to the bank, Ford Fairlane style. Doesn’t mean that I’ve lost a respect or love for books, I just like having a fat wallet and being able to jumbo size every now and then without fear of not making rent.
As annoying as it is, I’ve gotten used to the Millar trolling. Not when someone says "Millar isn’t my type of writt", but when they say "Millar is just a hack and a sell out Hollywood whore" or "Reading Millar makes you stupid" (Which is something ACTUALLY SAID in this thread). I hate this unwarrented stigma that has generated, but I’m used to it by now.
What I would have never imagined, however, would be that people would start trolling those that are attached to Millar projects for no reason besides that they are attached to Millar projects. We’re SERIOUSLY going to start calling Tony Scot a hack now? I’m not a fan of every single one of his movies, but the man is a highly talented filmmaker regardless of that fact. He’s got chops, and to call him a hack is just 57 varieties of incorrect. This film is going to be very stylistically shot, and like Kick-Ass, will add layers to the story that have been unseen in the comic. Because that’s what a talented filmmaker does.
I think Millar’s got his thing, and his thing is selling movies through comics. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. It’s still up to you whether you buy those comics or not. That’s a taste thing, but his angle or hook in Hollywood, is that he’s the hip comic writer who comes up with marketable properties. He’s using comics, in a way, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can’t say the dude doesn’t team up with top, top artists on this stuff. Selling a comic book isn’t so much different than selling a movie. He’s just doing both.
Tony Scott is hit or miss. It’s fascinating. Again, he’s a style, and either you like it don’t. Or you just like it every other time. That’s possible too.
My name is Domino Harvey.
Millar saw Virgin comics, copied their schtick and was successful at it, because his ideas are are actually good, the quality of the end product being debatable. Regardless, his comics, as of late, have been glorified storyboards.And Kick-ass wasn’t a very good movie, especially when nobody was getting punched or stabbed or decapitated, which was most of the time.
Also, my earlier comment aside, I do enjoy Enemy of the State a lot.
I think it’s a good fit. I hate Wanted but I also hated the comic Wanted which was a great example of how immature the comic medium can be. I loved Kick-Ass and the movie.Millar’s comic stuff is very hit or miss with me although I loved The Ultimates.
I think anyone who goes THIS IS GOING TO SUCK is still going to see it. Holly wood makes movies based of Millars stuff for the exact reason Josh said.
@muddi900-"glorified storyboards"–i hear that term being thrown around a lot….what does that mean? I think you could take any decently drawn comic book and use it as a story board. Zack Snyder has done a bit of that and his films are quite well done.
@sircox–there’s a total comic book guy "worst. movie. ever….i will now see it twelve times so i can accurately blog about how bad it is." kinda situation going on with some of the haters i’m sure.
well done or burned to a crisp.
I feel like the comic book movie genre is going to implode and fade away very soon because studios are trying to adapt any comic on the shelves these days. Don’t get me wrong, I support studios wanting to adapt comics that dont have Marvel or DC on them, but atleast try to get a comic that has been well regarded, or maybe, I dont know, one that has been finished.
@DarkKnightDetective: Matthew Vaughn agrees with you about the imploding soon thing.
I’m not sure what adapting a comic that’s not finished has to do with anything film-wise, though. KICK-ASS wasn’t finished when they started and it was an excellent film.
Without a doubt that implosion is going to happen. Look at 2011. Thor, Captain America, X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern (possibly the first in an annual trilogy). That’s a lot of big titles in the marketplace over a year; I’m sure I’m missing more than a few, and I doubt they will be paced apart very well. It’s great to see all my favorite characters on screen, but it’s only a matter of time before the average movie-goer has a backlash.
Is it just a little wrong to think that someone should finish their work before selling it to a film?
I mean Millar has been pretty vocal that he pitched this as a film long before McNiven got the script to draw it.
@Noto – It’s no more comic films than there were in 2008, and nothing bad happened then.
@TNC – Films, comics, books, magazine articles and more are pitched and sold all the time as nothing more than concepts. A comic series isn’t greenlit when the whole script is written, but based on a one page pitch.
@josh – That’s true enough, but everything comes and goes in cycles.
i don’t think we’ll see comic book movies go away until we see the summer action blockbuster go away, which i don’t see happening any time soon. Perhaps there might be a slow down in mainstream super hero stuff or certain franchises but i can’t see it going away completely. Comics are so visually rich i can see how producers and directors think comics are a dream come true for pitching.
Yeah, I don’t see comic book movies as a genre going away anytime soon. Maybe less per year than we’ve been getting, but as long as Batman and Spider-Man, and to a lesser extent X-Men, movies keep printing money, they’re going to keep getting made.
@wally:
Their purpose is not to be a comic book, but used as as pitch letters for movies. There is a reason people are still waiting for the next issue of War Heroes; the movie never materialized, so Millar lost interest. This was the business model of Virgin Comics, which failed miserably.
Also, I still don’t get why Kick-ass the movie is so popular. I wanted to fast forward most of it.
@kickass & @froggulper – While in the publishing industry, biweekly and bimonthly have come to mean every two weeks and every two months, respectively, in all technicality, the terms biweekly and bimonthly each have two meanings. Both "twice a week/moth" and "every two weeks/months". Yes I know it’s confusing, but hey, welcome to the english language. So, @kickass, you were correct in saying Ultimate Avengers ships bimonthly, don’t let people sway you so easily to their mistaken interpretation.
Ah-ha, I am correct again! 😉
@Muddi – Yah, about War Heroes, you may not have noticed that Tony Harris is drawing Ex-Machina #50 currently? :0
Adaptations are cornerstones to the movie making business. I think what we’re really suggesting is super hero movies will fall out of fashion with the mass public.
I don’t think Nemesis is that death knell for the genre though. To the untrained eye Wanted is only an action movie. Same goes for the 300. And the same goes for Scott Pilgrim.
Kick-Ass and Nemesis toe the line between super hero movie and something more subversive. In a way they’re anti-(super)hero movies. I dare compare Kick-Ass to the Zucker Brothers’ Airplane in how it lampooned its genre while deftly telling a story at the same time.
My guess is the Avengers movie will tell us whether the public can stomach more capes on the big screen. If the golden age of comic book movies ends there, so be it. It will have been a helluva run.
So is it okay for O’Malley to sell Scott Pilgrim before the series is done but not for Millar to do the same?
Tony Scott has made many movies I enjoy.
Mark Millar has made some entertaining comics, but overall, his name isn’t a draw for me. I will say that, unlike SOME creators, I do NOT feel like his work-for-hire is just phoned in and only done for the paycheck. That’s a good thing.
@ultimatehoratio You’re really reaching with that comparison. 2 comics < 5 fully developed books.
Kick-ass the movie was better then the book. Wanted sucked in both formats. Haven’t read Nemesis and don’t care too, but good for Millar..cash those cheques baby.