Mark Millar Signs With Fox To Consult On Marvel Movies

Despite all the fuss surrounding Marvel's The Avengers and the upcoming Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of The Galaxy movies, it's worth remembering that Marvel Studios isn't the only movie studio making Marvel movies, and Fox reminded everyone of that fact yesterday by announcing that it was signing Mark Millar on as creative consultant for its X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises.The shy-and-retiring Millar, who wrote The Ultimates and Civil War (amongst many other titles) for Marvel before going it alone with his creator-owned Millarworld line of comics including Kick-Ass, Nemesis and Superior, will serve as a consultant on Fox's planned reboot of Fantastic Four and the two forthcoming entries in the X-Men franchise, The Wolverine and X-Men: Days of Future Past, in addition to future projects within the studio's Marvel license remit.

According to Fox production president Emma Watts, the studio had signed Millar because, she said, "In addition to his groundbreaking Marvel work, Mark is simply one of the most original voices in comics today and will be an invaluable resource to us and to our filmmakers as we look for fresh opportunities to innovate within our shared Marvel universe."

In addition to his history with Marvel characters -- It's worth pointing out that the Marvel Studios movies drew heavily from his Ultimates series with Bryan Hitch, giving him an unusual connection to one of the most successful movie franchises in recent memory -- Millar also has a past with Matthew Vaughan, the man responsible for rebirthing the X-Men franchise with last year's X-Men: First Class movie; Vaughan and Millar collaborated on the Kick-Ass movie, and are currently working on not only Kick-Ass 2, but also a movie version of Millar's comic book collaboration with Watchmen's Dave Gibbons, The Secret Service.

"I really like the Fox team, love this bold new direction they have for their franchises and am proud to be working alongside some of modern cinema's biggest talents. James Mangold is incredible, Matthew Vaughn's one of my closest pals, and Josh Trank gave us, in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero movies of the last decade with Chronicle. The invitation to join this crew was maybe the coolest phone call I've ever had," Millar said with characteristic understatement in a statement accompanying the announcement. Describing his new role as a "dream gig," he continued, "I spent 10 years working at Marvel and am really happy with the work I did on the comic side of things, so the idea of working with these characters now in a brand new medium is enormously exciting for me."

The Wolverine is currently in production for a July, 2013 release. X-Men: Days of Future Past is in pre-production for a 2014 release, with Fantastic Four also in pre-production.