Perhaps mirroring Marvel Studios/Disney’s appointment of über-geek Joss Whedon as the narrative architect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – Phase 2, Twentieth Century Fox have now confirmed the amazing comic book creator Mark Millar will be their own captain for the future of the properties still held by the studio.
While this is terrific news, with Millar’s own cinematic leanings evident in his works Kick-Ass, Supercrooks and Wanted, it does leave him with a fairly limited crew to lead. With Daredevil and his associated characters reverting back to Marvel Studios and Disney this year, and Spider-man in the hands of Sony, that really only leaves Fantastic Four and X-Men under Millar’s wing for the foreseeable future. Both franchises seem fairly secured for the moment with The Wolverine currently filming and X-Men: Days of Future Past being the sequel to X-Men: First Class and possibly tying together the various thread of the X-Men cinematic universe. Josh Trank is officially onboard for the Fantastic Four reboot, so one can only imagine that Fox are eying the possibility of some crossovers.
Of course, there’s always the possibility of infinite numbers of spin-offs from the X-Men and Fantastic Four universes, as long as they don’t tread on The Avengers turf.
From the press release:
Marking an expanded commitment to some of its most important franchises, Twentieth Century Fox has brought on comics superstar Mark Millar to serve as a creative consultant on the studio’s upcoming projects based on Marvel Comics properties.
Millar wrote several celebrated Marvel books such as The Ultimates, Civil War and Wolverine: Old Man Logan, before moving on to found Millarworld (millarworld.tv), where he continues to develop existing film franchise titles Wanted and Kick-Ass, as well as newer comic properties The Secret Service, Superior, and Nemesis — the latter also in development at Fox. Millar will work with Fox on developing new avenues for its “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four” tentpoles.
Commented TCF production president Emma Watts: “We are excited to be working with Mark. In addition to his groundbreaking Marvel work, he is simply one of the most original voices in comics today and will be an invaluable resource to us and to our filmmakers as we look for fresh opportunities to innovate within our shared Marvel universe.”
Upcoming for the studio is THE WOLVERINE, starring Hugh Jackman, directed by James Mangold; X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, helmed by Matthew Vaughn; and a reboot of “FANTASTIC FOUR, to be directed by Josh Trank (Chronicle).
“As someone who has spent his entire life obsessed with both comic-books and movies, this is essentially my dream gig as it’s a unique combination of both,” stated Millar. “I spent ten years working at Marvel and am really happy with the work I did on the comic side of things so the idea of working with these characters now in a brand new medium is enormously exciting for me. I really like the Fox team, love this bold new direction they have for their franchises and am proud to be working alongside some of modern cinema’s biggest talents. James Mangold is incredible, Matthew Vaughn’s one of my closest pals and Josh Trank gave us, in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero movies of the last decade with Chronicle. The invitation to join this crew was maybe the coolest phone-call I’ve ever had.”
