Posted in: Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image, Movies, Netflix | Tagged: King Of Spies, Mark Millar, millarworld
Mark Millar’s Next Film Is To Be King Of Spies For Netflix
Mark Millar says his next film is to be King Of Spies for Netflix followed by the Nemesis trilogy, Magic Order, and Psychic Sam
Article Summary
- Mark Millar says King of Spies is the next Netflix film adaptation, with production set to begin before year’s end.
- Millar says film now takes 90% of his time, with Nemesis, The Magic Order and Psychic Sam lined up next.
- Mark Millar reveals Nemesis is planned as a streamlined movie trilogy based on Reloaded, Rogues’ Gallery and Forever.
- Millarworld’s Netflix future remains in focus as Mark Millar hints at new film plans and rising King of Spies buzz.
Comic book writer Mark Millar has had an oversized impact on comic books and pop culture; his work on The Authority, The Ultimates andCivil War was heavily influential on the first two Captain America and Avengers films, and his creator-owned titles Wanted, Kick-Ass, and Secret Service/Kingsman did similar before he sold his imprint to Netflix. And he made his first appearance at a British comic con in decades, and his first actual comic con appearance in an age, at High Vis Comic Con in Kings Heath last month, when I was taking my youngest to start Leeds University, so I missed out. Thankfully, former Bleeding Cool contributor Olly MacNamee was on hand to interview the man, and there was plenty of news and stuff for me to run waiting for New York Comic Con to wake up.
Mark Millar told Olly MacNamee that film now takes up most of his time, and that King Of Spies is the next Millarworld project to shoot. Nemesis, The Magic Order and Psychic Sam are also in the mix, with three things lined up. He says, “Well, I mainly work in film now. I’d say 90% of my time is film at the moment. Like, we’re shooting three things, pretty much back-to-back, by the end of this year. But I still love doing comics.”
Asked what was coming next, he answered without much hedging: “Well, the next one, right, don’t tell anyone, but the next one we’ll do is King of Spies, right, which is my sort of Britain’s greatest secret agent. I did the comic about four years ago, and the idea is Britain’s greatest secret agent is in his late 60s now, finds out he’s got terminal cancer and he’s got six months to live, three in good health, and he’s wasted the last 20 years of his life just sitting in these gentleman’s clubs and doing arms deals and all this kind of thing, and he’s like, I should do something good before he goes. So he kills everybody who he thinks deserves to die before he dies. And it’s basically my hit list of people I hate.”
I wonder if Grant Morrison and myself are on the list? “So I couldn’t stop myself. I was writing hundreds of people down, and it’s basically like imagining James Bond taking out all the real bad guys. So it’s really fun. The project worked out great. The book is the book I’m happiest with out of anything I’ve ever done.” Olly MacNamee checked that, and Mark Millar did not walk it back. “Yeah. Yeah. I love King of Spies. I’m so pleased with it. The screenplay, just by pure chance, was written by a guy who lives near me; we didn’t even know until we were doing a Zoom call talking about it. Then we saw the same background. We were like, what? And it’s… I can’t say much because it’s not public yet, but the guy who’s done the screenplay is amazing, right? He’s absolutely brilliant, and I’ve been an admirer of his for twenty years. And that’ll be the next thing we shoot. That’ll be the next thing. We’re doing Nemesis as a movie as well, and Magic Order, and Psychic Sam as well.” So the screenwriter lives in Surrey. Like all of them.
On Nemesis, he said the film version is planned as a trilogy built from the more recent comics rather than a straight adaptation of the original Steve McNiven series, though pieces of that first run remain. “It’s going to be the trilogy. See, the most recent one, the reboot. So it’s Nemesis Reloaded, then Rogues’ Gallery, and the third movie will be Nemesis Forever, with some elements from the first series as well, like the opening sequence, which is the scene in Japan that was in the Steve McNiven. I think it would be too confusing, because there’s so much continuity involved, so we’re streamlining it to just Nemesis. But there’ll be references to things like the superheroes used to be real and that kind of thing. But the movie we’re just keeping pretty simple, which is just evil Batman versus the world.” He also suggested Big Game, the Millarworld crossover, is unlikely to make the jump in this round. “Big Game sounds like one of those things you can only do in a comic… maybe 30 years down the line when it all gets rebooted.”
Millarworld was bought by Netflix in 2016, for around $31 million, which should cover King Of Spies, Nemesis and Magic Order. Psychic Sam was crowdfunded outside of Millarworld by his Kick-Ass co-creator, John Romita Jr., from Mark Millar Productions, as well as a second title, Conquered. It has been reported, but unconfirmed, that Mark Millar is no longer a Millarworld employee since the beginning of 2025, which is when Mark Millar Productions was established, though still involved with the movie and comics production of those properties that Netflix now owns. It is also notable that the Millarworld line has published no new IP comic books since then, with the recent Star Crossed being a mashup of existing Millarworld properties, Sharkey, The Bounty Hunter and Space Bandits. Mark Millar has said his next plan is to launch his own film studio, which Psychic Sam would be a part of.
If you believe Mark Millar and fancy a little speculation, copies of King Of Spies #1 have recently sold for under $3 on eBay, the collection for under $4, and a four-issue set of mint copies for $20. I reckon this interview alone (and Bleeding Cool’s reporting on it) should at least double that…
King of Spies was a four-issue Millarworld comic by Mark Millar and Matteo Scalera, coloured by Giovanna Niro, published by Image in 2021. A Dark Horse Comics is listed for the 15th of December 2026, which would make for a timely announcement about a Netflix film if one were due. Sir Roland King, based somewhat aroundSean Connery, was the service’s best man and the first issue opens in 1990, Panama, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, henchmen and a knife team, the usual apparatus. By the present day, he is in pain, retired into gentlemen’s clubs and arms deals, and he has just been told he has terminal cancer: six months, three of them in decent health. He decides the world he spent forty years propping up is the mess, and that politicians, royalty, journalists and celebrities are on the list. A lifetime of tradecraft makes him very hard to catch. The one person who might be able to stop him is his estranged son, who wants him destroyed for abandoning him and his mother. Mark Millar has compared the appeal to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kingsman, Unforgiven and Kill Bill, and called it cathartic with zero repercussions, because he is dying anyway, as long as he stays ahead of every security service hunting him. It was built as a film property from the start. The 2021 announcement said the comic was based on designs from the Netflix Millarworld team and would lead into a Netflix film.
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