New Gods Writer Tom King Teases Ambitious Jack Kirby Movie

Comic scribe Tom King made a big name for himself with his work in both Marvel and DC but his limited series for Mister Miracle made him a household name, and put him on the radar of filmmaker Ava DuVernay who has been tapped by Warner Bros. to direct the New Gods for the big screen. Though King had never written a movie before, his familiarity with the Jack Kirby creations made him a prime co-writer with DuVernay. Speaking with ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast earlier today, available now on all major podcast platforms, King opened up about their ongoing efforts and the similarities between DuVernay and Kirby.

“I want to caveat it cause i like to be as honest as possible, you’re just going to get crappy platitudes out of me,” King said with a laugh. “Working with Ava is a joy, she’s incredibly focused on the emotional core of these characters. It’s been fun, I’ve never written a movie before now I’ve done some TV, none of it ever comes out, Hollywood’s a weird place. But I’ve done some of that but this is my first sort of big, huge movie with space battles and all that stuff. It’s a ball, as long as we focus on the core Jack Kirby relationships that he created, that make it good, it’s going to be a good movie. That’s where Ava and I both are.”

When asked if the New gods movie would further the take that DC films does things darker than Marvel, King said that maybe darker isn’t the right word, but ambitious definitely is.

“It’ll fall into the ‘DC is as ambitious as we can make it,’” the scribe said. “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.”

No official release date for New gods has been announced just yet but in the meantime DuVernay is still definitely working in the DC universe, adapting Vertigo Comics’ DMZ for HBO Max, which was given a series order last year. She’s also developing a television series based on the DC superhero Naomi for The CW, alongside Arrow producer Jill Blankenship.