Millar wants Superman

UPDATE: No dice for Millar. Short version, Warner Bros. (and DC Comics owners) didn’t want a writer so closely associated with Marvel, their superhero competitors. Millar gives the full lowdown HERE.

Oct. 22, 2007 — Mere milliseconds after the announcement that SUPERMAN RETURNS writers Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris relinquished script duties on another Man of Steel movie and Warner Bros. stated they were fielding other pitches, comic scribe Mark Millar had his hand in the air shouting “Pick me, pick me!”.

Though he came to recent prominence as a Marvel writer on titles like CIVIL WAR and several ULTIMATE titles, Millar is a passionate longtime fan of the spit-curled DC superhero. And he wants this job, hot dammit: “I’ve been asked to work on half a dozen screenplays lately, but this is the only one I have ever truly wanted,” Millar says. “I have literally hundreds of pages of notes and sketches just waiting for this opportunity. This would be my dream gig and, as a fan, I know exactly what this project needs to work. This has to be Superman for the 21st Century, keeping everything we adore, but starting from scratch and making the kids love it as much as the 30-somethings. I would honestly write this thing for free.“

While the official line is that the studio plans a direct sequel with Bryan Singer involved (don’t expect that to last), insider mumblings say that they really want to ignore the first movie (as Marvel is essentially doing with next year’s INCREDIBLE HULK) and try a different angle, a hypothesis supported by Millar’s quotes. Or this could all just be a smokescreen, Warner’s skewed way of putting the character back in mothballs for a while and seeing what shakes out with JUSTICE LEAGUE — after all, the studio traditionally hasn’t exactly been in a hurry to get their major heroes into theaters.

Millar, whose comic work has ranged from exciting to adequate to clunky and trite, is already seeing another of his books adapted to the big screen with next year’s WANTED (although that flick will completely ditch the costumed villain aspects of the comic, which I found to be the book’s only redeeming quality thanks to outstanding art and designs by J.G. Jones).