Today we learnt that the rumoured film adaptation of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Nemesis is to be directed by Tony Scott. The news was first leaked out by Bleeding Cool and then confirmed by Deadline.

Following the success of the film version of Millar’s Kick-Ass, a film of Nemesis seemed inevitable but things appear to be moving pretty fast with Tony Scott already on board to direct and Scott Free producing.

Update: Mark Millar has commented on the news on the Millarworld forums and confirmed that he has already spoken to Tony Scott about casting and budget and that the budget is “way more than Wanted and Kick-Ass put together”. That’s over $100 million. Regarding the casting and Scott’s choice Millar said, “The actor he’s shooting for as the lead character is going to blow your socks off.”

Now I know a lot of people are fans of Tony Scott but I’m not one of them. He’s made a lot of popular films that I consider to be pretty terrible, although this probably isn’t the best time for me to go off on a rant about that…

Is he a good choice for Nemesis though? He may just be. Nemesis has so far been a flashy comic with not much substance or emotional resonance. That might sound a bit harsh but Nemesis isn’t entirely failing because of this. It is still quite fun and the exploitative nature of the comic has been enough to suck me in past issue one.

Mark Millar teased Nemesis with the tagline “What if Batman was the Joker?”. He also described the comic using the tagline “What if Batman was a total c**t?” which highlights Mark Millar’s particular knack for grabbing headlines. The idea is simply what if a character like The Joker had all the money and resources at Batman’s disposal but still had the same sick and twisted world view.

Nemesis is now two issues in and, as I said above, I’ve not been that impressed by it. The artwork by Steve McNiven is fantastic though (check out the below image from Marvel.com for an example of the quality of work here) but the writing seems weak by comparison.

Here’s a brief run down of the plot that Millar shared with CBR before the release of the comic:

Nemesis is the world’s smartest man, and the bad news for us is that he’s the world’s only super-villain. That means he’s got freeze guns and jump-jets and all these James Bond gadgets and he’s using them against us. To entertain himself, he picks a different cop every year and makes his life a misery. The book opens with him fucking over Japan’s top cop, and then our story, the mini-series, takes place as he shifts his attention to Washington and his first American attacks.

So what do you think of the news that Tony Scott is on board to direct Nemesis? (feel free to also leave hate filled comments about how I’m wrong about Tony Scott and how Top Gun is brilliant)