Mark Millar, comic-book creator and now Fox's top comic-book advisor, came in to the **Empire Podcast **recently and talked about Kick-Ass 2, his comics work and his new role overseeing the Marvel titles at 20th Century Fox. Here's a sampling of what he had to say, for those of you who don't do so much of the listening thing. First up: Kick-Ass 2. Will it be true to its wildly violent source material?
"It's insanely faithful; it's actually almost scene-for-scene. When you see it balanced as a screenplay, it has enough light and shade that the really awful stuff that happens, you can deal with because there's been enough laughs. It's like Tarantino: Tarantino's amazing because he can have you laughing one minute and then someone's head gets blown over the back of a car window."
"It's a little darker, I think, but we planned it that way. The idea was going to be it would be like Empire Strikes Back to Star Wars, so the world would get bigger and the world would get darker... Every scene that's in the book is there, but maybe toned down just a little because otherwise it would be too much. But it's harsh!"
Millar also talked about ending the series with book three, and how it compares to Star Wars, and talked about Matthew McConaughey being in the frame for Big Daddy in the first Kick-Ass. Then we also asked about his work at 20th Century Fox.
"You've got Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon doing such an amazing job over at Marvel Studios, but the cooler characters really are at Fox. Fox bought this because it was the best stuff, Sony came in and got Spider-Man - and what Marvel had left was the characters that people didn't think would translate onto film, and that's since been proved brilliantly wrong... So Fox are thinking, let's try to get something cohesive going."
"So they brought me in to oversee that, to work out a plan. At this stage, I can't get too specific, but I have a three-to-four year plan of where things could go... just figuring out how everything could work together and not contradict each other. But I don't want everybody showing up in everybody's film. My dream, as a fan, is when you go and see any Marvel movie it feels like they're all taking place in the one universe. Fox and Sony and Marvel should all be best friends and see it as a shared responsibility."
Millar also talked about why having Marvel's movies at three separate studios is a good thing, and made some very tantalising suggestions about the future of Marvel's cinematic universe, but for those we suggest you listen to the whole podcast, which you can get your hands if you click play on the SoundCloud file below (Mark's interview starts at 42.47), and remember, you can subscribe to the Empire Podcast via iTunes or our RSS feed.