Bird Box star Sandra Bullock seems to have found another Netflix project she can help turn into a big viral hit, with Deadline reporting that she’s set to executive produce and possibly star in an adaptation of the sci-fi fantasy comic Reborn from writer Mark Millar and artist Greg Capullo. Lego batman Movie director Chris McKay is set to direct Reborn, so there are some reasonably big names attached to this project already.
As Deadline explains it, the story is about an elderly woman who dies in a Manhattan hospital only to be—wait for it—Reborn “in the prime of her life” in a mystical afterlife world called Adystria. To her surprise, this afterlife world happens to be a magical land full of monsters, dragons, and an eternal war of good against evil. She meets up with some dead friends and then teams up with her own father (who is also presumably younger) so she can find her missing husband, who is not in Adystria despite dying before her.
This announcement comes more than a year after Netflix picked up the rights to Mark Millar’s entire line of Millarworld comics, which has so far been relatively unfruitful.
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Reborn is one of Miller’s good comics, although it mainly does that by having gorgeous artwork by Greg Cappulo. The premise is interesting, although it doesn’t do much with it beyond “Hey, let’s have a bunch of fights.” I have high hopes that Chris McKay will do a great job, however (although what about that Nightwing movie, McKay?).
“Reborn is one of Miller’s good comics”Using the current data sets of Mark Millar adaptations, should be a lock for the Oscars then.
so, not misanthropic, then?
The problem with Mark Millar is he always (or nearly always) writes entertaining stories, but they’re never truly great, and he has this bizarre way of sabotaging himself again and again. And yet he’s entertaining enough that I keep reading his books. “Reborn” felt very episodic to me, and it seemed like so much more could have been done with the idea, so I’m interested to see what a different writer’s take would be on the basic (and I do mean basic) story.
Mark Millar is great at concepts and action scenes, but its his execution that almost always fails.Civil War. Wanted. Kick Ass. Nemesis. Superior. Ultimate X-Men. The Ultimates and so on…all great concepts with amazing action, but huge characterization and plot problems.Take away the great artists he usually gets on his books, and you usually end up with horrible reads, while Ellis, Morrison or Ennis rarely have that problem.He is the Michael Bay of comics, truly.I think Warren Ellis nailed it when he said (somewhat) that Millar’s problem is that writes with a movie adaptation already in mind.The best example of this is The Authority; the deop in overall quality once Ellis left and Millar took over is mind boggling.
The concept of Reborn is strong enough, I would have proposed making a TV series out of it. But that’s just me. I do recommend giving the comic a read.
Millar’s work has always succeeded on it’s premise only. The actual writing is horrendous. Usually his “high-concept” ideas are turned into movies that are better than his books, which is usually the opposite with other comics/writers.Please also see Brian Michael Bendis—Same problem.
Brian Michael Bendis is a much, much better writer than Millar. Both Alias and Ultimate Spider-Man are awesome, through and through.
As good as the 2 works you mention above are, what about all of the other work he has done? There is just so much terrible work done by Bendis—Most especially his Guardians of the Galaxy run. He was Marvel’s go-to writer for far too long. Without checking the actual numbers, the amount of good work he has done is far outweighed by the rest.
As good as the 2 works you mention above are, what about all of the other work he has done?Every writer has some bad stuff they’ve done, but Bendis has a lot of legitimately great stuff: Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Men, Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Alias, The Pulse, New Avengers (I liked it), Spider-Woman, Secret Warriors (the first arc, co-written by Jonathan Hickman), Siege, Moon Knight, Jessica Jones, and The Defenders. His great indie books include Powers, Scarlet, and The United States of Murder. And, so far, his run on Superman and Action Comics have been pretty damn good.
So what you are saying is that you are a Bendis fan?
Which one of those comics that I just listed do you think is bad?
Not all of them are bad. They are mediocre.
Again, which ones?
All of them!
So you think all of the ones I listed are mediocre — even Alias, Daredevil, and Ultimate Spider-Man, the ones which were critically acclaimed.I’m beginning to think that you haven’t actually read any of Bendis’s stuff, you just like to hate on Bendis because the internet told you.
Sorry, I did not include Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias since they were mentioned in our initial conversation. USM and Alias are very good.
I don’t like Bendis’ Daredevil. I prefer the Frank Miller and Mark Waid runs. “Born Again” is the best Daredevil story (IMO), even though Frank Miller lost his marbles in the 21st century.
But just because you don’t like a story doesn’t make it bad. Bendis’s storylines were very good and revitalized Daredevil for the early 2000s. Again, same thing for New Avengers (even if Avengers Disassembled was terrible). The reason so many people dislike Bendis stories is because Bendis wrote a ton of stories, which means that a lot of them were good and a lot of them were bad.
Honestly, the guy worked hard. I will give him that. My issue is with the amount of reverance he has undeservedly earned—For mediocrity. I can’t take away his work ethic. That’s fine, you can say he worked his ass off, but does he deserve the adoration?
Meanwhile, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning were the creators that brought to life the version of Guardians of the Galaxy portrayed in the MCU. They made a team comprised of a tree and a raccoon awesome enough to be made into a movie! If it wasn’t for James Gunn, I don’t know if Abnett and Lanning would have received any credit at all.
Then you watch the MCU films and Bendis’ name appears in the credits. He didn’t create the Avengers. He didn’t create Spider-Man.
Marvel even gave him the new GOTG book that was published during the film’s release, automatically boosting sales in his honor. I’m sure some of the fans that walked out of the GOTG movie (and loved it) thought maybe they would check out the comics. Not realizing they were going to read the worst comic run of all time, written by Brian Michael Bendis. Those readers probably never bought another comic again.Then Bendis goes and fucks off to DC.
That’s fine, you can say he worked his ass off, but does he deserve the adoration?You don’t have to adore him to feel like he deserves some credit. Then you watch the MCU films and Bendis’ name appears in the credits. He didn’t create the Avengers. He didn’t create Spider-Man. He’s not being credited for the Avengers or Spider-Man. He’s being credited for characters he did help create, like Miles Morales and Jessica Jones. Hell, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was heavily based on one of his comics, Spider-Men. There are lines in the Jessica Jones show that come directly from his comic. Marvel even gave him the new GOTG book that was published during the film’s release, automatically boosting sales in his honor. Blame Marvel, then, not him. Sure, his GOTG run wasn’t good, but, again, everyone has their hits and misses. Bendis worked better on books with single characters where he could really develop those characters; not so much with team books (even his best issues of New Avengers were ones that focused on a single character). Then Bendis goes and fucks off to DC. After writing exclusively for Marvel for eighteen years and writing nearly all of their properties and also after discussing it with Marvel themselves. In fact, I’m not sure why you are so mad he left to go to DC — for one thing, he’s brought back Young Justice in DC, but for another, he’s allowed other writers at Marvel to write the characters he was writing, like Saladin Ahmed for Miles Morales, Kelly Thompson for Jessica Jones, and, amazingly, Eve Ewing for Ironheart.
“This announcement comes more than a year after Netflix picked up the rights to Mark Millar’s entire line of Millarworld comics, which has so far been relatively unfruitful.”
Seriously, where is Superior?
So it’s an isekai anime? Cool. Sign me up for Sandra Bullock fighting goblins and tsundere demons.
Sword Bullock Online.
Well I can’t wait for people to do the Reborn Challenge where they try killing themselves and then go LARPing a few minutes later.
So if Bullock stars in this, how are they going to explain that the “prime of her life” was when she was pushing 60?
Well, turns out her face was just painted on. You folks have good night now.
With a roller?
Yeah, I fully support women of a certain age working all the time, but the disparity between her age and that of her character in Bird Box was the worst since Robert Downey, Jr. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain.
I have to be honest. It didn’t dawn on me that she was probably too old to be having a baby, LOL. I thought of the character as more in her late thirties, and I thought she gave a great performance.
Shit, a Hollywood 60 looks better than a lot of natural 30s around here – I think that disparity only exists in your knowledge of the actors age, and refusal to dismiss that knowledge and accept the stated character age. In other words, that’s your unique issue — not a problem for most viewers.
Do you also complain about high school students being played by actors pushing 30? Because I’d hate to think that you were just mad at having to look at a woman over 40 years old on your computer screen.
Oh right, my criticism of the age gap must be motivated by my deep sexist nature. Oh, by the way, im a woman. Got any more amazing insights to share with the rest of the class or are you done looking like a dumb ass?
Ask Ms. Jean Brodie.
If we didn’t have magazines and websites telling is actors ages, we’d assume a good deal of them are younger.
BOY! GIRL! BOY! GIRL! The Chicken McNugget Challenge!
I read this as Sandra Oh at first, and wowee was I excited.Equally stoked to have someone with Bullock’s talents on board, but my god I think I just want Sandra Oh in just about everything.