The details of New Gods have been largely kept under wraps since director Ava Duvernay joined the project which award winning comic book writer Tom King is involved with to write the script. King, a writer who has won awards for work with Marvel and DC, joined ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast on Friday where he opened up not only about the tone of the New Gods film but also one of the key character. King penned a Mister Miracle series for DC Comics in 2018, one which has left its mark on readers. Of course, Mister Miracle is a key component of New Gods stories, so it should make sense King is teasing the character having a role in the film.
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When asked on the Phase Zero podcast is Mister Miracle should be expected for the New Gods movie, King said, “I don’t see how you could do New Gods with Mr. Miracle, it’d be a weird movie.” Mister Miracle is the god of escape, a character created by Jack Kirby in 1971. The character brings ties to larger DC lore, like being raised on Apokolips and having been a part of the Justice League of America in various stories, for example.
“It’ll fall into the ‘DC is as ambitious as we can make it,’” King said of New Gods‘ tone. “To give a movie like New Gods to a visionary director like Ava… To me, Jack Kirby and Ava are very similar creators. They come from similar places and they have sort of parallel histories and I feel like I’m just the person meeting these two people together so they can create something that’s unique. I don’t know if I’d say it’s dark but it’s definitely going to be ambitious, it’s going to be her doing her thing.”
In bringing New Gods to the big screen, King is flexing entirely different writing muscles. He is decorated in the comic world, having nailed down his chaotic process, but scripts for films are turning out to be an entirely different beast.
“Comic book scripts, for people who don’t know, they’re all over the place,” King said. “There’s no rule on how to write comic book scripts. You can be like a Roger Stern, who who might write, like three words per page. Or famously, like Grant Morrison would tell Yanick Paquette like, ‘I want a double page splash, that’s the meaning of love.’ And that would just be it, you know? Be like, ‘What’s that?’ Whereas, Alan Moore will write 17 paragraphs on one shot of a gutter. So, I’m somewhere in between those two extremes. Movie scripts are much more formatted. They’re all on Final Draft, which is a program everybody uses. They’re all in the same font. It’s a very common language. So it’s much different than comics. It’s much less flexible.”
Are you excited to see Mister Miracle in New Gods? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram!
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