With at least a dozen film and TV projects in development based on his own books and characters, Mark Millar is fast becoming his own comicbook behemoth to rival Marvel and DC. But he remains a creative consultant for the Marvel projects still residing at 20th Century Fox, and as such has just weighed in on the Fantastic 4 debacle. "Everything's open to discussion," he says, addressing where the franchise could possibly go from here.
"It's a shame," he tells IGN, regarding Fantastic 4's reported production problems and box office underperformance. "I think elements of it were good. The first half in particular works well. [Director Josh Trank] is brilliant. Chronicle was my favorite superhero movie in 2012 - and be reminded Avengers was out that year. Sometimes things just don't work out as planned. Everybody is trying their best and those guys worked their asses off. It just didn't quite come together.”
Speaking to the notion that the intended new franchise has likely stalled at part one (a Fantastic 4 sequel currently has a release date booked in 2017, but that now looks doubtful), Millar says “I think everything's open to discussion. No decision has been made on anything yet like that. There's chats everyone's going to have on the phone at some point.
"But the Marvel brand is such a powerful brand," he continues. "Marvel doesn't always work out great: Thor 2 didn't work out especially well; Iron Man 2 didn't work. But then Iron Man 3 comes along and it's great. These things can be uneven sometimes. Avengers 2 is nowhere near as good as Avengers 1. There've been 45 superhero movies or something over the last 15 years. They can't all work out fantastically. I'd say the hit rate has actually worked out terrifically compared to most genres."
The next movie based on a Millar comic to hit the screen will be Marvel's in-house Captain America: Civil War, which is out on April 29 next year. The next Marvel movie from Fox is X-Men: Apocalypse, out a few weeks later on May 19.