Mark Millar, the comic writing genius whose most notable credits include 'Kick-Ass' & 'The Ultimates,' recently chatted with Sottish
Daily Record's John Millar. Mark shares his personal thoughts on the much-anticipated adaptions of Marvel's
Captain America: The First Avenger &
THOR, FOX's
X-Men: First Class, Warner Bros.'
Green Lantern, as well as Sony's
The Green Hornet. He also acknowledges how today's technology has caught up with the stunning vision & imagination of the their source material.
"Captain America is a brand name and everyone knows it, whether it is from Peter Fonda's character in Easy Rider or through reading the comic books. It is a name that is as famous as Spider-Man or Superman but Captain America has never been a hit TV show. It hasn't hit the mainstream, even though it is a name that everyone recognizes. This film may be a tough sell but I'd love it to be a hit because I am a big fan of the character."
"The idea of a Thor movie is really exciting. It's like a combination of Lord of the Rings and a Marvel superhero. It fuses the mythology and superhero genre together. It's the only time that's happened. The potential is great and the timing for this film is perfect."
"I'm a big Seth Rogen fan, so just the idea of a slacker superhero is a cool one. The guy who plays Kato [Green Hornet] is a top martial arts expert so he is obviously going to be the action star. I am excited about this film although it is a hard sell because it doesn't have the fan base of the Marvel or DC Comics characters."
"My old pal from Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn, is directing [X-Men: First Class]. After Wolverine and X-Men 3 - which weren't that good - I think they wanted to 'do a Star Trek' and go back to basics. Matthew told me he had always wanted to do a Dr Nostyle film with an international network... but with mutants. The film also has talent like Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. That's another reason why comic book movies are so big. It used to be bad TV actors that played superheroes and now it's the cream of the cream."
"I think [Green Lantern] is going to be the biggest one next year. It has a very charismatic lead in Ryan Reynolds. I don't think people realize yet how much they love him but I think he's going to be the next Harrison Ford! There are three Green Lantern films planned because they know this is going to be massive. It's like Star Wars meets Superman."
"Big-screen technology has caught up with the imagination of the comic books. Before this happened Spider-Man always looked like a guy on a wire and The Hulk was a body-builder painted green. Now characters like these can look as good as they do on the pages of a comic, if not better. These days you are not limited by budget or technology. You are just limited by imagination, which is a great position to be in."
It's only two months until the "bloodbath" year approaches. And we have all these CBMs to look forward to, and then some, while
Captain America parades into theaters July 22,
THOR storms May 6th,
Green Lantern beams June 17th, X-Men: First Class unites June 3rd, and
The Green Hornet ventures January 14th. We're taking over!