Mark Millar Talks NEMESIS; "One Of The Most Relentless And Powerful Screenplays I've Read"

Kick-Ass and Jupiter's Legacy writer and creator Mark Millar has issued a lengthy statement via his forums declaring Joe and Matthew Carnahan's Nemesis screenplay as, "the biggest and smartest action movie we've all seen in a very, very long time". Read on for details!

By JoshWilding - Oct 04, 2013 10:10 AM EST

Filed Under: Nemesis

I'm a huge Mark Millar fan. Whether it's Marvel, DC, Image or Icon, I've pretty much loved each and every book he's written. Despite being arguably the most prolific comic book writer of today, when I was lucky enough to meet him back in 2011, there was no ego. Mark is just a genuinely nice guy (something anyone who's interacted with him on Twitter will be able to attest to). We're lucky then that he also happens to share stuff like this; his reaction to Joe and Matthew Carnahan's Nemesis screenplay. This is the Millarworld adaptation I'm personally most looking forward to and it sounds as if the team behind The Grey have come up with something truly special!

How can I put this?

Nemesis is one of the most relentless and powerful screenplays I've ever read. I was actually SHELL-SHOCKED after reading it, thinking about it for hours afterwards and discussing it with the family. As a movie, the Carnahans have crafted something we've never actually seen before and I feel like someone in Julia Phillips' office must have felt when Schrader's TAXI DRIVER script first landed on their desk. This is going to be one of the best movies of the decade. The fact that it's a SUPERHERO movie is incredibly exciting to me. This is the next step for where a comic-book adaptation can go and, simply as a viewer, I'm now counting down the days until I can sit in a screening room and see the first cut.

This is going to be MASSIVE.

And I'm not being hyperbolic here. Joe and Matthew Carnahan are two of the most respected people in the business and Joe's most recent movie, The Grey, ranks as my favourite in a year that had a lot of my favourite movies. He upped his game again with the Death Wish screenplay, which was one of the most compelling scripts I've ever read, but he's blown his other work out of the water with Nemesis. I had no idea where he was going with this (I wrote the book back in 2010, co-created with the brilliant artist Steve McNiven), but Joe had been tight-lipped on what he had planned and wanted me to experience the entire package for maximum impact when I sat myself down with a nice bottle of whisky and soaked this up over a two hour period.

There's nothing else I can really say. I've been blessed with the people adapting these Millarworld books so far, some of the best writers and directors currently working in film, but NOTHING prepared me for this. This is huge, operatic, tragic, monumental. This is about America right now and the world the audience is walking back into the second they leave the cinema. Nemesis is about America's worst nightmare in the form of a costumed billionaire attacking a city and doing everything he can to tear it down. The high concept, it's been said, is if Batman was The Joker and that's quite a fun way of looking at it. The cop who goes up against him, the Blake Morrow character in the book, is going to be a movie icon after this picture. I don't know who's going to be playing him at this stage, but I know that after reading the script everyone is going to WANT to.

It seemed odd to me in the economic downturn that we'd all be rooting for a costumed billionaire out there fighting poor people in Gotham City every night. That's what was in the back of my mind when I first sat down to write the book, this notion that richest guys on the planet could actually be the most terrifying. But what Joe and Matthew have done with this is practically alchemical. I joked to Joe on the phone last night that he's basically a brilliant plastic surgeon who has taken a decent-looking individual and turned them into a sex-bomb.

This is my new favourite movie and it's still a year or two away from anyone even seeing it. It's going to be the biggest and smartest action movie we've all seen in a very, very long time.

Get excited.

ZATANNA Movie Writer Emerald Fennell Has Finished Writing NEMESIS Screenplay According To Mark Millar

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41 Comments

1 2

ATrueHero1987 - 10/4/2013, 11:05 AM

Despite how he present himself interviews, I think he's a very good writer. Nemesis, however, wasn't his best work-to me anyway.

@Josh You really liked Nemesis??

I might need to re-read it again.lol

ATrueHero1987 - 10/4/2013, 11:05 AM

*in

knocturnalzen10 - 10/4/2013, 11:07 AM

starting to disslike this guy. the fact his writing books just to get flims from them, an in the retrospect loosing his nitch in writing

JoeMomma29 - 10/4/2013, 11:09 AM

Gusto must be off his meds today!

JoJo1982 - 10/4/2013, 11:10 AM

ppl do realize that millar is full of shit, right?

Humperdink - 10/4/2013, 11:12 AM

Millar loves every screenplay ever written for his comic book ideas.

I actually dig the new Jupiter stuff, though.

LEOSTRATOR - 10/4/2013, 11:13 AM

I never heard someone suck their own (bleep) so hard. But I did love the book and hope this is just as crazy as shit.

Enphlieuwince - 10/4/2013, 11:19 AM

Taking in account that this script is based on his own work and he must be terribly flattered, and, the very first critique of the source material I hear from ATH1987 suggests that he may have improved in something that wasn't all that fantastic from the start - it sounds like I'll be front in center for this movie.

ndwwrestler2 - 10/4/2013, 11:23 AM

I really don't see the problem with his comments. If I had created a comic book and it had turned into a pretty good screenplay, I would probably be overly ecstatic too.

Joe Carnahan is a good writer and director, I don't think it's gonna be as great as Millar says of course, but it'll be a good film.

Luigi - 10/4/2013, 11:27 AM

Love me some Mark Millar. That being said, he exaggerates. A LOT.

plasticman - 10/4/2013, 11:30 AM

I've looked forward to this movie since I read the book 2 years ago. From the first read you knew this could be a film that radically changes the landscape of CBM's in Hollywood. Besides Blade, what rated-R CBM is worth more than one viewing?

The carnage that I feel this movie will lay down in a meaningful manner is what needs to be done in a Wolverine movie.

TheFox - 10/4/2013, 11:30 AM

I've gotten just a little sick of Mark Millar's ridiculously hyperbolic promotion of anything he's even tangentially associated with. I mean, okay, you might have liked the script, Mark, but this is laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?!?

I am not excited about this movie. Nemesis was the most gratuitously disturbing work Mark Millar's pumped out so far in his career, and THAT is saying something. If there were anything more to his books than just "look at how many insane, super-violent action sequences I can come up with!", I might be willing to look past the bloodshed and find the meat beneath it all (like I can easily do with, say, RoboCop). But Millar seems uninterested in anything but over-the-top violence these days.

If he's touting this as the best script he's ever read, I'm genuinely worried at the thought of what's in it.

Z

MarkV - 10/4/2013, 11:48 AM

The Grey was really pretty intense.

That being said, Millar sounds like he's gone off his meds. I'll take this with a grain of salt.

Dedpool - 10/4/2013, 11:52 AM

I have liked allthe Millarworld books for the most part as well. I'm behind on SuperCrooks and Secret Service, but hearing this makes me happy cause Nemesis was just insane and I like Carnahan so this will be sick!

ndwwrestler2 - 10/4/2013, 11:58 AM

I don't really see Millar praising his own work as much as he's praising the Carnahan's.

StatenMan18 - 10/4/2013, 11:59 AM

I think it'll be sick. I've never seen a movie base off his writings that I didn't love. Kickass is my favorite and I hope secret service is good too.

StatenMan18 - 10/4/2013, 12:03 PM

Plus old man Logan is an epic comic IMO

astromerc - 10/4/2013, 12:13 PM

This whole thing reminds me of this story I heard on the Howard Stern Show.

Rob Schneider (a former SNL guy) said that Steven Seagal said he just read the best script in the world ever and Schneider asked who wrote it and Steven says

"I did".

That being said I will still see this movie. LOL!

astromerc - 10/4/2013, 12:15 PM

LOL!

Battabing - 10/4/2013, 12:17 PM

He said all that shit about Kick Ass 2.

Look how that shit turned out.

beane2099 - 10/4/2013, 12:58 PM

Once again Mark Millar distinguishes himself as the epitome of the smooth talking huxter. Hyperbole doesn't begin to do justice to what he does. And if you're selling your goods (intellectual or otherwise) for consumption by the masses that's exactly what you have to be. Do I personally believe that the Nemesis: The Movie is going to be one of the best movies of the decade? Hells to the no. But when you read his honey drenched words, you WANT to believe. I mean Jeff Wadlow is attached to all kinds of projects now Kick Ass 2 has come out, right? Kick Ass 2 was deemed best movie of the summer by fans and critics alike, right?

plasticman - 10/4/2013, 1:11 PM

You guys bash him but would you not promote your own material with such fanfare? I can't blame his excitement. I can give him credit for enjoying the letters to the fans stuff that Stan Lee did so much that he does that for his fans today with letters like this.

So you don't like the violence in Nemesis, do you not like the redeeming qualities of Superior? His work is not always about violence. Nemesis just happens to be the epitome of violence. The Saw of the CBM world. You can't help but look. And in looking there is a pretty well written story to go with it.

I got five words for you: He's better than Rob Liefield.

Maybe five and a half.

nikgrid - 10/4/2013, 3:17 PM

"One Of The Most Relentless And Powerful Screenplays I've Read"
Yeah. You're not one for hyperbole are you Mark.

marvel72 - 10/4/2013, 4:03 PM

the comic is so f*ckin dark.

OldBenKenobi - 10/4/2013, 6:03 PM

Nemesis was the only Millar book I did not like. They have to make a movie for Superior though.

MightyZeus - 10/4/2013, 8:37 PM

I dont trust this Mark Millar dude on what he says about movies.

airbeyonder18 - 10/4/2013, 9:11 PM

EXCITED!!!!!!

MatTaylorX - 10/4/2013, 9:21 PM

He also said Kick-Ass 2 was going to be amazing...

loki668 - 10/4/2013, 11:43 PM

"This script was touched-ah by GAWD-UH!! In fact, the almighty himself asked for a part in the film. I replied to the lawd-uh that he would have to audition like everybody else. The lawd-uh said that "this script was so perfect", that he would gladly audition."

This guy is going to roll into traffic, trying to suck his own dick like that.

thetrojan - 10/5/2013, 5:45 AM

Battabing - 10/4/2013, 12:17 PM
Report Comment
He said all that shit about Kick Ass 2.

Look how that shit turned out.

I was sorely disappointed with this .
It was half a movie!
I reckon it may have been sabotage in order not to lose money on the third installment.
Nemesis is a good 'story' it would make a good movie.

Shaggy - 10/5/2013, 6:49 AM

"I'm a huge Mark Millar fan. Whether it's Marvel, DC, Image or Icon, I've pretty much loved each and every book he's written."

that's because you're an idiot

Shaggy - 10/5/2013, 9:24 AM

yes Josh, that comment was for you

1 2

Mark Millar Talks NEMESIS; "One Of The Most Relentless And Powerful Screenplays I've Read"

Kick-Ass and Jupiter's Legacy writer and creator Mark Millar has issued a lengthy statement via his forums declaring Joe and Matthew Carnahan's Nemesis screenplay as, "the biggest and smartest action movie we've all seen in a very, very long time". Read on for details!

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