Guardians of the Galaxy Writer Bendis: Warner Should Form a DC Movie Brain Trust

Talking with SFX Magazine about the forthcoming film adaptation of Guardians of the Galaxy, longtime Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis (who will launch the series for Marvel NOW! with artist Steve McNiven soon) suggested that Warner Brothers would do well to imitate Marvel's success and tap some of their comics talent to help developing their film properties. The writer also cited 20th Century Fox, who recently put comics veteran and Kick-Ass co-creator Mark Millar in charge of their X-Men and Fantastic Four films. "There's a lot of brainpower here, so it was like 'let's put them to work,'" Bendis is quoted by CBM as saying. "That's why we've such a strong hit ratio and it's why we're light years ahead of where Warner Brothers is right now. They should do the same thing with Geoff Johns and their other guys. They might be in better shape if they did that. Fox have hired Mark Millar to do the same thing for them on X-Men and Fantastic Four. It works, so that's exactly what you should do." The magazine also pressed Bendis about the wisdom of launching a new science fiction franchise based on a bunch of characters nobody ever heard of, most of whom are aliens, at the same time Disney is looking to relaunch Star Wars. According to Bendis, he's not concerned. "We first started talking about doing this years ago when it looked like there weren't going to be any more Star Wars films," said Bendis, who serves as part of the Marvel creative committee he was referring to above. "It just shows that there must be something in the air. It's one of those zeigtiest moments when everyone is thinking about the same thing. Marvel is thinking about how to make their space epic work & here comes the greatest space epic ever & from the same company. It'll be fun!"