Upcoming comic book adaptation Kick-Ass is set to be one of the biggest movies of the year - and creator Mark Millar has said it wouldn’t have existed without STV show Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade.
In the last part of our extensive interview Millar also talked about converting his American Jesus work to the big screen, and how one studio boss asked if he could take Jesus out of the storyline... Plus he revealed details for War Heroes, which is in the hands of Sony.
Award-winning Coatbridge-born comic book writer Millar has several works in the pipeline, Wanted recently a huge box office success - but it turns out now of this would probably have been possible without Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade (later renamed Glen Michael's Cavalcade), which began a run of 26 years in 1966.
Talking about the STV show, Millar said: “That was how I discovered superheroes. When I was a wee boy, Scotsport was a Sunday afternoon, Farming Outlook and Glen Michael’s Cavalcade. Glen Michael was a God to kids.”
He added: “We literally just Sunday afternoon for one hour for cartoons, and that’s why Glen was a God. It’s where I saw Spider-Man and those characters for the first time.
“I kind of in a way - I said this to Glen when I met him - I owe him my career, because I think that’s what got me into it.”
When asked if that means Glen Michael’s responsible for Kick-Ass, Millar replied: “Absolutely, yeah, and he’ll be at the premiere. He was on set in the movie, hopefully he’s in the movie as well, I had him down filming for a day.”
He added of Glen’s involvement: “He’s shot a cameo. I haven’t seen the very final print yet so I can’t say 100% for sure, but I was promised he was going to be in it, so hopefully - but he was down for the whole day and had a trailer and everything.”
“That went out to some studios. After Wanted a few things that I owned got approached by the studios to buy, like American Jesus, War Heroes and Kick-Ass were the first three, and now there’s Nemesis and a couple of other ones going out this year. American Jesus, it was funny because everyone seemed to want to do it for a bit, and then they all panicked because Jesus was in it.
“I remember one producer said: ‘Is there any way that we can take Jesus out of it?’ because we really like the story. And I said: ‘Jesus is in every scene of this!’
“They said ‘Oh, it could be a bit risky, could we maybe call him Dave or something?’ And I was like ‘I don’t think it’s going to work’.
“I’ve realised again, just work outside the system. Matthew and I had talked about the possibility of American Jesus, I was talking to another London-based company about it, and just making it independently outside the system, and then if it’s good get it picked up somewhere.
“I think with a movie like that it’s the only way to go, if you try and do it through the studios it’s going to end up rubbish.”
Scriptwriter Jane Goldman helped adapted Kick-Ass for the big screen, and she may be helping Millar with another upcoming movie project.
He confirmed: “Over at Sony I’ve got a thing called War Heroes, and the idea behind that is the Gulf War, it’s already been going on longer than they planned.
“If it drags on another 10 or 15 years - there’s this horrific long war and nobody wants to go and fight anymore - the high concept of this is instead of giving you a gun they give you a pill that gives you super-powers to go and fight in the Middle East, and all these wee guys then want to go and sign up and join, so it seems it’s quite an interesting set-up: it’s like Full Metal Jacket meets the X-Men or something. It’s a good Boy’s Own ripping yarn.”
- Find out more about Millar's plans to direct an ‘epic’ Scottish superhero movie this summer in the first part of our interview.
- In the second part of the interview we have Millar talking about how Kick-Ass’s independent status was preferable to the studio system behind the likes of Superman - which he and Vaughn pitched for.
- Millar explained to us why he didn't set out to offend with Kick-Ass and and character Hit Girl.
- The comic book writer revealed more about new project Nemesis and how it will "invert" the superhero mythos.
- The writer also revealed to us that Wanted 2 will be going ahead with the first film's star Angelina Jolie.
- Finally he told us that without STV show Glen Michael's Cavalcade his comic book career and Kick-Ass would never have existed. How nice of him! He also talked about the status of American Jesus and War Heroes.
