More From Mark Millar On Kick-Ass, Miracle Park And Nemesis!
The comic book writer talks about the financial and critical reaction to Kick-Ass, talks about working on and casting his directorial debut Miracle Park, and briefly shares his thoughts on Tony Scott directing Nemesis...
On The Success Of Kick-Ass:
"It did $100m on theatrical and a further $100m on DVD, but funnily enough we were disappointed: we wanted it to do on a parallel with Avatar which coined in at least £800m in America. The test-screenings were off the scale. They tested it in Los Angeles, Texas, New York and London, and in three of those places it got the highest-ever test screenings. We were thinking, hang on a minute, we’re onto something here."
On How The Critics Reacted To The Movie:
"It helped that Matthew is friends with Rupert Murdoch, whose family were great believers in the film. So The Sun didn’t give it a hard time. The worst was the Daily Mail critic, whose review was so over-the-top that it created a backlash from his own readers. His verdict on it was ‘Evil’. I wanted to use that on the back of the DVD, but they wouldn’t go along with it..."
On Casting The Right Unknowns In Miracle Park:
"Almost everyone was good, which I wasn’t expecting, and there were two or three real stand-outs. It was very heartening, because it made me realise I wasn’t crazy for shooting this on my own turf."
On The Experience Of Directing His Own Movie:
"It’s been the most fun I have ever had, and I’ve been doing this since I was 19. Maybe because it’s unfamiliar ground for me, I don’t feel as if I’m retreading old ground. Directing feels like comics, but more exciting in a way: you’re dealing with people as opposed to sketches on a pad. Two hundred things can go wrong at any one time because you’re dealing with lighting and sound and so on, and that’s what makes it a rush. We have about 20% of the film in the can and will hopefully have filming done by Christmas."
On Tony Scott Directing Nemesis:
"Getting to work with him is amazing, you always wonder why he has not done a comic-book movie"
About The Author:
A lifelong comic book fan who grew up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the '90s, Josh Wilding has been contributing to ComicBookMovie.com since 2009.
While he's also written for websites like Batman-News, HeyUGuys, and WhatCulture, Josh is CBM's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and the site's #1 contributor with nearly two decades of experience covering film and TV news (including interviews with Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Gary Oldman, Halle Berry, Jon Bernthal, Tom Welling, and hundreds more).
Based in the UK with his wife, Josh is also an avid WWE and Formula 1 fan and writes about those passions on CBM's sister sites, TheRingReport.com and FullThrottleHQ.com. Favourite superhero? Spider-Man. Favourite pro wrestler? CM Punk. Favourite F1 driver? Max Verstappen.