Mark Millar has been having a good couple weeks. Not only was it publicized that Matthew Vaughn has acquired the film rights to his comics ‘Superior’ and ‘The Secret Service’, THR has announced that Universal is now in negotiations for the movie rights to his six issue comic series ‘War Heroes’.
The film rights originally belonged to Columbia Pictures where they acquired it in 2008. Nothing was ever done with it so Jeff Kirschenbaum, co-President of Production at Universal, decided to jump on the chance to negotiate for the rights. Kirschenbaum is a big fan of Millar and had previously oversaw the production of another one of his comics, ‘Wanted.’ Producer Michael De Luca (‘Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengence’, ‘Fright Night’) who was attached to the project from the beginning is still listed to produce along with Dana Brunetti (‘The Social Network’) and writer Chris Morgan (‘Wanted’, ‘Fast & Furious’ ‘Fast 5’). Co–creators of the comic, Millar and Tony Harris, are to be executive producers. Thomas Dean Donnell and Joshua Oppenheimer, the writers of ‘Conan the Barbarian’ and ‘Doctor Strange’, are currently in negotiations to write the screenplay.
If you’re not familiar with the comic series ‘War Heroes’, it’s about a program developed by the U.S. government who begin to create super soldiers as the number of people willing to enlist start to diminish in the face of a continuing war on terrorism. They develop a way to give regular soldiers super powers such as night vision, flying, super strength and telekinesis. When a rogue group of super soldiers decide to use their powers for evil means, it is up to one hero to rise up and prevent a disastrous outcome.
We’ll let you know if the negotiations come through but in the meantime, if you’re a fan of the comic, what do you think of a movie version? Is it worth the trouble?
