Nemesis, the new comic creation from Mark Millar and Steve McNiven has studios salivating. The concept is simple, Batman is evil, a juxtaposition of character that Millar himself has colourfully described as “What if Batman was a total c*nt?”. Nice!
After internet rumors suggested that Sam Raimi was set to fill the directors chair on the property Millar took to his forum to address the matter:
“Can I just stomp this rumour before it gets any further? This week CAA was approached by an A-list director to buy Nemesis before it goes to auction in March. Then Sam announces he’s not involved in the Spider-Man franchise any more, pursuing other projects. A lot of movie sites got in touch last night asking if the two stories are linked, but I just want to make it clear that Sam is not the guy who contacted my agent. I actually think he’s one of the three best living directors and would be honoured to have him on anything I do, but he’s not the guy who got in touch and the truth is that I’m not taking this out until March as originally planned. I want to have the whole thing finished before anybody reads it as Steve and I think we’re onto something pretty special here. Civil War and Old Man Logan were massive hits, but the interest in this from the moment we even said the title has just been unprecedented. We want to make sure this goes to the right guy, though Raimi would actually be an amazing choice and it would be a hilarious middle-finger to all the suits he just walked away from. I’ll keep you posted.”
Yesterday however, Millar added gas to the fire, in a new topic titled, ‘Raimi directing Nemesis might not be crazy at all!’. His first post went a little like this: “Things move fast in Hollywoodland. I just woke up to some VERY unexpected emails…To be continued.” Hmmm, not a whole lot of info there Mark.
Responding to a fan question about a potential script Millar categorically denied that anyone had seen one and that current market speculation is all based on the success of Wanted, the hype surrounding Kick-Ass and the fact that it’s simply a brilliant concept to begin with.
Another name mentioned in fan posts to Millar was Guy Ritchie, flush with success after Sherlock Holmes. Millar was more coy suggesting that he would talk to Ritchie but that the iconic good-guy versus bad-guy dynamic might be a little too close to Holmes. Millar did confirm that he would meet with Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughan later this week to “see what he reckons”,
So alright then, he obviously quite insane but crazy talented, and anything he does will draw massive Hollywood attention. It’ll be interesting to see if any of the above ever pans out but even if it doesn’t Millar won’t be too bothered.