When Matthew Vaughn passed on the Kick-Ass sequel and moved to the X-Men: Days of Future Past project it looked like Vaughn might not be working with Mark Millar again in the immediate future. However with Vaughn leaving X-Men in favour of Bryan Singer at the helm, it seems he's found the time to assign his next entry... which is one of Milalr's other books: The Secret Service. Fox have just won distribution rights after it looked like Universal might win the day.
The story, illustrated by Dave (Watchmen) Gibbons, featured a hardened veteran killer agent, Jack, stepping in to mentor his troubled deliquent hoodied nephew Gary in a series of survival techniques with the aim of becoming an agent himself. Naturally, being a Millar book, things go sideways and extreme very quickly... involving Mount Everest, terrorists and the kidnapping of various sci-fi celebrities including Star Wars actor Mark Hammil The director, who will be once again working with scribe Jane Goldman (Stardust, Kick-Ass) has said that in the same way Kick-Ass had a subversive take on the Spider-man concept, The Secret Service has echoes of a more earthy James Bond. The original concept came when Millar was musing how we knew so little about the early days of James Bond and how Sean Connery had been deemed almost too 'rough' for the role.
There's no news on casting, though the character in the comic has an undeniable look of Jason Isaccs about him. Mark Hammil already looks to have been enticed ro fulfil his cameo...
Filming should begin in August with a release date already penned for November 2014 - and Millar tweeting last year that his intention is to have further chapters to both the comic version and film entries of The Secret Service every two to three years...
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