Netflix Announces 5 Film, TV Projects Based on Mark Millar Titles

Almost a year on from its acquisition of comics publisher Millarworld, Netflix has announced a total of five film and television projects based on the works of Mark Millar. On the film side, that includes Empress, Huck, and Sharkey The Bounty Hunter. Jupiter’s Legacy and American Jesus are the two TV series in development.

Writers and/or showrunners have been picked for all five, with Steven S. DeKnight – for Jupiter's Legacy – the most high-profile of the lot. DeKnight is best known as the creator of Spartacus, alongside showrunner duties on Daredevil season 1, and directing and co-writing Pacific Rim Uprising. He will serve as showrunner and direct the first episode.

Jupiter's Legacy is about millennial superpowered children struggling to live up to the achievements of their parents, who were the world's first generation of superheroes in the 1930s. Published in 2013, the comics had been under development as a film prior to Netflix's acquisition of Millarworld. Hence, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who was attached then, will serve as executive producer alongside Dan McDermott and DeKnight.

The other TV series, American Jesus, will be a multilingual (Spanish/English) adaptation from Everardo Gout (Luke Cage) and Leopoldo Gout (Molly's Game), who will serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. It follows a 12-year-old who discovers he's returned as Christ and can perform all the miracles Jesus was known for.

Theodore Melfi, an Oscar nominee for 2016's Hidden Figures, will pen Huck, a story about a boy who uses his special abilities to do good. Things goes awry after a newcomer tells the media. Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe are attached as producers.

Empress will be written by Lindsey Beer (Sierra Burgess is a Loser), with Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum (The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle) set to produce. It's about Queen Emporia who's married to the "worst dictator in the galaxy" King Morax. After escaping with her children, they are forced to live a life on the run.

That leaves Sharkey The Bounty Hunter, which will only be published as a comic next year. Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) will script the film, which is about a bounty hunter named Sharkey, who travels the galaxy in a rocket-powered ice-cream truck.

“My wife Lucy and I are eleven months into our jobs at Netflix and it’s everything we hoped for to the power of ten," Millar said in a statement. "To see a movie based on your work every couple of years is incredibly exciting, but to see them all happening at once like this and with talent this high-end is just off the scale. These are writers and directors I’ve privately been sending fan-mail to over the last eighteen months so to be working with them all is just enormously exciting."