Picture Credit: Millarworld
It’s been a very quiet few years for Millarworld at Netflix, but if Mark Millar is to be believed, that’s about to change. Speaking at a UK comic con last month, the comic book creator revealed that a King of Spies movie is the next Millarworld project to shoot, followed by a Nemesis film trilogy and The Magic Order.
Millar made the comments in an onstage interview at High Viz Comic Con in Kings Heath, Birmingham. H/T to Bleeding Cool, who first spotted the interview via the Geeky Brummie and Olly MacNamee YouTube channel interview.
Film now takes up most of his time:
I mainly work in film now. I’d say 90% of my time is film at the moment, like we’re shooting three things pretty much back to back at the end of this year, but I still love doing comics.
Millar didn’t name Netflix directly when discussing the slate, but King of Spies, Nemesis and The Magic Order are all Millarworld properties that Netflix has owned since buying the company, though we’ll let you know if that changes.
King of Spies is next up
Asked what was next, Millar said:
Don’t tell anyone, but the next one we’ll do is King of Spies, which is my sort of Britain’s greatest secret agent.
King of Spies is a four-issue comic by Millar and artist Matteo Scalera, published in 2021. It follows Sir Roland King, a retired British super-spy who, told he has six months to live, sets out to kill everyone he believes deserves it, with only his estranged son able to stop him.
Millar described the premise as James Bond “taking out all the real bad guys” and called it his favorite, “The project worked out great, it’s the book I’m happiest with out of anything I’ve ever done.”
The project was conceived as a film from the start. Bleeding Cool notes that the 2021 comic announcement said the book was built on designs from the Netflix Millarworld team and would lead into a Netflix movie. Millar wouldn’t name the screenwriter, saying only that it’s someone he’s admired for 20 years who, by coincidence, lives near him.
No cast, director, or release window has been announced.
A Nemesis trilogy, The Magic Order and Psychic Sam
The Magic Order Adaptation Netflix
King of Spies isn’t the only Millarworld adaptation on Millar’s list:
That’ll be the next thing we shoot, that’ll be the next thing, we’re doing Nemesis as a movie as well, and Magic Order, and Psychic Sam as well.
Nemesis is planned as a trilogy built on the more recent run of comics rather than the original 2010 series with Steve McNiven. Millar said the three films will follow Nemesis Reloaded, Nemesis: Rogues’ Gallery and Nemesis Forever, with some elements borrowed from the original, including its opening sequence in Japan, and summed the films up as “evil Batman versus the world.”
The Magic Order also got a mention, though Millar gave no further details. Notably, he grouped it with the movie projects; it has always been developed as a TV series, so that may have changed.
Psychic Sam is the odd one out. As Bleeding Cool points out, it was crowdfunded outside of Millarworld with Kick-Ass co-creator John Romita Jr. through Mark Millar Productions, so there’s no indication it’s a Netflix project.
Millar also poured cold water on Big Game, the Millarworld crossover event, ever making it to screen, saying it was one for “30 years down the line” when everything gets rebooted.
Nearly 10 years on, Millarworld at Netflix has been a slow burn
Any news on Millarworld is welcome news, because it’s been a long dry spell. The last time we covered Millarworld was back in February 2024, when production listings had The Magic Order finally set to begin filming in Chicago that March under new showrunner Alex Meenahan. That production was then pushed back to late Q3 2024 at the last minute before ultimately being scrapped. No doubt the Hollywood strikes bear some responsibility there.
It was the second time the series had fallen apart. Netflix first pulled the plug in October 2020, while it was in early pre-production in Prague, before reviving it the following year. Huck is another project that came closest to production but has long been dead behind the scenes.
August 2027 will mark 10 years since Netflix acquired Millarworld, its first-ever company acquisition. At the time, Ted Sarandos called Millar “as close as you can get to a modern-day Stan Lee,” and the deal promised a steady stream of films, series, and kids’ shows. In practice, the output has been thin: Jupiter’s Legacy was canceled after a single season in 2021, the Super Crooks anime arrived the same year, and The Chosen One, the adaptation of American Jesus, followed in 2023, which never got a season 2. A long list of announced projects, including Prodigy, Empress, Reborn, and Sharkey the Bounty Hunter, has also yet to materialize.
What’s next?
If Millar’s timeline holds, King of Spies could be in front of cameras before the end of 2026, which would make it the first new Millarworld production for Netflix in years and a fitting way to head into the 10-year anniversary of the acquisition. With The Magic Order having twice fallen apart before filming, though, we’ll believe it when we see the production listings.
Are you excited about King of Spies and a Nemesis trilogy on Netflix? Let us know in the comments.