Why did Matthew Vaughn leave X-Men: Days of Future Past? Turns out, rumors that he wanted to concentrate on The Secret Service were right on the money, according to co-creator (and executive producer of the movie) Mark Millar:
We thought Matthew was going to do X-Men first, but we found out there were actually a few imitators of ‘Secret Service’ in the works. People think you’re lying when you say you’re not trying to get your comics made into movies so quickly, but the two reasons it happens like that is first because it’s the best ad for the comic you’ll ever have. And for me, selling the book is the most important thing. The second reason is because people are always trying to rip you off. Somebody will start to work on a spec screenplay about your idea. There are three other projects I know of now about a James Bond kind of guy taking a street kid and turning him into a spy. Three screenplays were already going through Hollywood about this! So Matthew and I said, ‘Fuck this. We’re not letting anyone steal our ideas.’
So, I wonder how quickly we’ll see a Secret Service movie in theaters, if they’re planning on making this as soon as possible…?
November 7th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Stealing your idea, really?!
Not like that isnt a trope.
The CHERUB series was all about this…except the agents did die and get replaced from time to time.
Bet TV Tropes has more examples here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TeenSuperspy
November 7th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
A big of research on TV tropes shows Rudyard Kipling wrote Kim.
“The title character is a street urchin named Kimball Ohara (called Kim throughout the novel) who has been befriended by the Pathan horse trader and spy Mahbub Ali.”
Written in 1900.
November 7th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
This is the same guy who thinks it doesn’t matter if you end up getting paid more than you ever did for your work-for-hire stuff, it’s on the back end you’re “working for free”
November 7th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Millar’s ideas aren’t very original in the first place, so the chances someone’s already written a screenplay similar to anything he’s ever done are about 1 in 1.
November 7th, 2012 at 11:40 pm
@justsaying
That’s amazing! I never knew that Ruyard Kipling wrote a book where a James Bond pastiche trains his own replacement!
What I find especially interesting is that James Bond wasn’t even invented until 50 YEARS after that book was published making Kipling a pioneer in the literary technique of referencing works that HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN CONCEIVED YET.
November 8th, 2012 at 8:34 am
Stealing ideas from Mark Millar? That’s the intellectual equivalent of eating out of dustbins.
November 8th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
The Star Wars angle to this sounds like Millar started the rumor on Twitter and is just using at as hype for this project.