Mark Millar Clarifies Superman Rumors
Mark Millar has clarified the rumours surrounding his Superman revamp comments.
According to Millar, his passion for the project was re-ignited when his still-unnamed director partner asked him to get involved.
“The ‘director’ phoned me about a month ago, and said ‘Look, I’ve got absolutely no authorization from Warner Brothers, because Warners aren’t looking in particular, but I want to have all my soldiers lined up, just in case.’ He said, ‘I want to do a complete reboot of the Superman franchise.’ He said, ‘I know you’ve got a huge passion for it and the buzz on ‘Wanted’ is great.’ I think it was the week before ‘Wanted’ opened. He said ‘I’d just like you to be a part of it. I think there’d be a really good fan reaction, because people have said they’d like to see what you’d do with it. And I’d just like you to be part of the team. Are you interested? It took me a nanosecond to say ‘yes’.
“I’ve had the plot for an amazing Superman trilogy figured out since I was about ten, so I told him that and he loved it. When we were in the states, we met up – he’s an American director, and he’s a big, big deal in terms of action movies [emphasis ours] and so on. But in terms of courtesy, you have to wait and see if Bryan [Singer] is going to do any more. You can’t just go in there and nick a project off a guy. If Bryan ends up standing back and goes to move on and do something else, we’ll be in there like a shot.”
While Millar did not confirm the name of a director, we now know it is not the previous mentioned french director Louis Leterrier. He also said that the mandate from this unnamed director is to avoid retreading the Richard Donner movies, and start fresh. While Millar is known for putting controversial spins on superheroes, he said there’s no reason to court controversy for the Man of Steel.
“But in saying that, without meaning it, and not in a crude way, I have got some ideas that are quite radical for it, and when I was talking to the director in L.A. he was very excited, saying ‘God, that’s a take on it we haven’t thought of before’. So I think it’ll probably naturally be controversial following the decision, if it happens…but in a good way. It’d be nothing like Chris Nolan’s Batman, because Batman and Superman are so distinct. To me, this is a film that you can take your five year-old to, and his eyes should be lighting up saying ‘This is the best film I’ve ever seen’,” Millar said.
“I’ve had this insane thing, my whole life, like I’ve always felt-everybody’s here for a reason, and I’ve always felt that’s my reason. Everything else to me is training to do a Superman film. Everything else I’ve ever done, the good stuff, the bad, it’s all just training to revamp Superman. And then after that I should just fuck off and do something else,” Millar said. “That’s my only real ambition.”