Invincible Star Steven Yeun on Whether He Wants To Be in the Live-Action Movie

Steven Yeun is in an interesting position, now that the wild success of Invincible has led to a big question: if a live-action version were to happen, what would that look like? One thing it certainly wouldn’t feature is Yeun in a lead role. While audiences love Yeun in general and his voice performance as Mark Grayson in specific, the fact is, Invincible is the story of a teen superhero, and that means a 40-year-old man is not going to be able to play that role in a convincing way in live-action, no matter how perfect and young his voice might sound.

Speaking with Screen Rant in support of his new movie Love Me, Yeun admitted there’s no way of playing Invincible in live action, but said “who knows?” about an appearance in a theoretical live-action version. It certainly sounds like he is into the idea generally, as he praised both the comic and writer Robert Kirkman.

“We’ll see. I love working with Robert. That comic is so great, and it goes so long and so deep,” Yeun said. “So, I’m excited to see that play itself out. Right now, we’re having a lot of fun making this show. Live action – who knows?”

Invincible centers on Mark Grayson, a teen whose father is the world’s greatest superhero, Omni-Man. Omni-Man, a stand-in for Superman, is an alien from far away, and Mark is the product of Omni-Man having a child with a human woman. As Mark starts to develop super-powers for the first time in high school, the comic follows his adventures and relationships, especially focusing on his relationship with Omni-Man. In what became an almost immediate reveal for the animated series (but was a shocking twist well into the comic book series), Mark eventually learned that his dad was a scout, sent to prepare the Earth for invasion.

The comic book series has — that Omni-Man twist notwithstanding — been adapted very faithfully in the animated series, which has excited comic book fans and really emphasized the strongest parts of the series in the more mainstream form of the Prime Video animation. How that will translate to a live-action movie, where the studio will need to figure out how to depict a lot of graphic violence and still make money in theaters, is anybody’s guess.