A year before signing his major deal with Netflix, comic-book creator Mark Millar was still being courted by multiple Hollywood studios.
There were dinners and business meetings that had Millar wondering where his creator-owned, comic-book gold mine Millarworld would go next. Hits like “Kick-A–” and “Kingsman: The Secret Service” proved Millarworld had bite at the box office. But before Millar signed off on making another movie based on his comics, he received a streaming offer he couldn’t refuse.
Millar says he wasn’t expecting an offer from Netflix, but the company fit like a glove from the moment he sat down with it.
“When we walked into that meeting, we just loved them. You know some things just work, just click. And we sat down, and we were like these are our people,” Millar told The Washington Post’s Comic Riffs. “And they felt the same way. Netflix was the most serious about it.”
What put the streaming giant over the top of other Hollywood suitors in Millar’s eyes was the realistic potential that his entire Millarworld collection could be adapted in its entirety. Millar estimates a major Hollywood studio might produce 25 hours of movies a year, compared with the thousands of hours of entertainment that Netflix streams annually. He’s convinced that at a Hollywood studio, much of his Millarworld collection, which contains more than a dozen titles, might have been “sitting on shelves.”
Netflix came in with a promise to work on Millarworld in its entirety, including beginning production on multiple titles at once with the promise that Millar could have any writer or director he likes.
“It was just the most enticing proposition,” Millar said. “And it was like the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Now officially a senior employee at Netflix, Millar’s priority is developing live-action content, but his favorite part of his new deal is that he can continue to make comics when he wants, and because of the company’s deep pockets, he can also get the best comic-book artists in the industry to work alongside his writing. The catch is now everything he does is under the Netflix umbrella, which means Millar’s books will be put out by the new Netflix Comics instead of being released under Image Comics or other publishers.
Millar is essentially working in reverse now: Before, he would make the comics and then watch them get developed. Now, he’s developing shows and making comics off that content.
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The first Netflix Comics series to come out of the deal is “The Magic Order,” which Millar describes as “Harry Potter meets ‘The Sopranos.’ ”
“The idea is that I’ve never seen a ghost, you’ve never seen a ghost, the reason monsters don’t exist is basically [of] these [magicians],” Millar said. “The simple thing is that a bunch of people around the world who live among us, they’re stage magicians by day. At nighttime, these are the guys who take care of the problem. They take care of anything supernatural and they have been for years. They drew all the monsters into the shadows a thousand years ago, and they keep it all quiet. It’s structured as a family drama. It’s about a family in America who take care of the problems, but there’s different families all around the world kind of like the mafia.”
The six-issue comic book series debuts on June 13 and will be illustrated by Olivier Coipel. (Millar didn’t provide a timeline as to when the live-action version will begin streaming on Netflix.)
Millar says his creative process is fueled by Netflix’s no-fear approach to taking risks on content — something Hollywood, despite having multimillion-dollar budgets, is not as inclined to do.
“Studios tend to be run by people who are afraid to lose their jobs. I’m not exaggerating when I say that … [executives] try not to get something made because that 150 million [dollar] gamble isn’t on them if it doesn’t work out. It sounds crazy, but I see this every day. People are so terrified of giving the green light to something because they don’t want the blame if it fails,” Millar said. “Whereas Netflix is kind of like … there’s a whole bunch of risk-takers. And I love that aspect of it. … Something can be discovered three weeks after it launches or six months after it launches; you don’t have the same pressures that come with studios. And as a creator that’s just super exciting.”
Millar is scheduled to make his first con appearance in years at Chicago’s C2E2 this weekend. It’s the first time the Scotland-born Millar has been back to the United States, and it hasn’t been for business meetings or movie premieres and is just an event where he can talk about Millarworld.
“I’ve always been in love with America. I mean when I was a kid I had an American flag in my bedroom. I must have looked like a spy or something,” Millar said with a laugh. “I love the concept of America. And for me, it’s so synonymous with superheroes. Even the flag, the red, white and blue is the colors of Superman, Spider-Man and Wonder Woman. Even when I’m walking around New York, and there’s a big building that looks like the [Fantastic Four’s] Baxter Building, everything I recognize, I recognize from comics.”
C2E2 marks Millar’s first American con appearance since his Netflix deal. Looking back on the decision, he says he’s convinced he put the future of his world in the right hands.
“Disney doesn’t need Millarworld. Warner Bros has got the DC characters,” Millar said. “Netflix is just such fertile ground. The honest truth is, it’s just the best game in town right now.”
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