Comic book stories are no longer just Marvel and DC's domain.
Writer Mark Millar's series "Jupiter's Legacy" got the Netflix treatment in 2021 with an
8-episode season.
After years of work spent bringing it to life, it was cancelled after only one month.
Here's the untold truth of the short-lived show.
When Stan Lee gives you comic advice, you take it.
Lee co-created Marvel's most iconic characters, but he never owned his own Marvel work — which
led to a much lower cut of the profits from Lee's characters than he deserved.
Lee even sued Marvel in 2002, dismayed with the meager cut he received from the first
"Spider-Man" movie.
Mark Millar worked for Marvel when Lee encouraged him to break from the company to create his
own content.
Wanting to help Millar avoid the same mistakes he made, Lee coached the budding comic book
writer to write for himself instead of a large company.
Speaking with Business Insider in 2015, Millar revealed some of the helpful advice that Lee
had given him:
"He said, 'Financially, now it's so much better for you guys than it ever was for me.
You could own the rights to your own movies and books.
You could license this stuff to people, like toys.
If I had the opportunity you've had, I'd have killed for it.'"
"And with great power, comes—"
"Great responsibility."
"No.
Well, yeah."
Given the success that Millar has had as a creator in comics, movies, and TV, it seems
like Stan Lee's advice was worth listening to.
It's not often that a major studio buys an entire company, but that's precisely what
happened with Mark Millar's Millarworld company in 2017 when Netflix bought the whole shebang
for around $40 million.
Of course, the acquisition includes all of Millar's comic works from the company beyond
"Jupiter's Legacy" — including properties like "Kick-Ass," "Kingsman," and "The Magic
Order," Netflix's first comic book series, which was released after the company purchased
Millarworld.
Given the prior success of Millar's many works on screen, the purchase doesn't seem to have
been a huge risk for the streaming giant.
Given that the acquisition happened in 2017, what took so long for the series to end up
on Netflix?
Millar told The Hollywood Reporter in April 2021 that he had spent time focusing more
on the series' quality, rather than worrying about how quickly he could get it out, saying,
"You can do it fast, or you can do it brilliant.
That's my philosophy."
Still heeding Stan Lee's advice, Millar made sure that he would remain president of Millarworld
even after the acquisition.
In a May 2021 press release about "Jupiter's Legacy," Millar noted,
"When my wife, Lucy, and I sold Millarworld to Netflix in 2017, our first priority was
'Jupiter's Legacy.'
We had flirted with the idea of a movie, but Netflix afforded us the chance to make this
adaptation as big and deep as it needed to be."
Millar first conceptualized the "Jupiter's Legacy" series in 2008, but the first issue
wasn't published until 2013.
Millar handled the words while Frank Quitely handed the series' illustrations, and Pete
Doherty took on the lettering.
As Millar told The Hollywood Reporter, the "Jupiter's Legacy" comics are the longest-running
series Millar has ever published, spanning over 20 issues.
The Netflix series covers five issues over a single eight-episode season.
Compared to comic book universes like DC and Marvel, eight years between publishing the
first comic and landing a massive Netflix deal for the series isn't exactly a long wait
time.
Some comics take decades to get adapted for the screen, so going from the page to a full-scale
film production in that short a time is far from ordinary.
Of course, it helps that "Jupiter's Legacy" is far from Mark Millar's first foray into
Hollywood.
With his resume, it was only a matter of time before "Jupiter's Legacy" was added to his
filmography.
Few directors have had more success with superhero movies than James Gunn.
The director brought "Guardians of the Galaxy" to the big screen for the first time, establishing
a new beloved franchise in the Marvel film canon.
He also picked up the pieces from DC's "Suicide Squad" property with a reimagined follow-up,
2021's "The Suicide Squad."
So when Gunn gave Millar advice about what he should do with his "Jupiter's Legacy" property,
Millar had good reason to listen.
While "Jupiter's Legacy" was initially conceived as a trilogy film series in 2015 with Lorenzo
di Bonaventura in a production role, Millar discarded the plan with a push from Gunn.
During an interview with Den of Geek, Mark Millar revealed that Gunn told him that the
comics "could never work as a movie."
Much of Millar's success comes from listening to those who have come before him, and he
proved more than willing to listen to this advice.
As Millar told Den of Geek, quote, "the smartest guy in the world is James Gunn."
Most TV shows with heavy backstory take an episode or two to lay out the origin story
when delving into the characters' histories — but Mark Millar had other ideas with "Jupiter's
Legacy."
Instead of spending a minute (or 40) delving into the history of the first superheroes
in the "Jupiter's Legacy" canon, we get to watch the historical origins of the Union
of Justice members be revealed throughout the series, one piece at a time.
Jumping between past and present, the series dips into its characters' Great Depression
backstory, covering their respective histories when it's relevant to do so.
So, what exactly influenced Millar to take this route?
During an interview with The Wrap, he revealed that "The Godfather Part II" provided the
inspiration for the series' woven time jumps.
According to Millar, the idea was pitched by Steven DeKnight, the original showrunner
for "Jupiter's Legacy."
In the same way that Michael Corleone and his father Vito's stories play out at the
same time, decades apart, so too do the stories of Sheldon and Brandon in "Jupiter's Legacy."
Millar explained,
"The 'Godfather II' structure shows the father and the son at the same age.
And that's the same thing that's been done here, to show the young characters and the
old characters at the same age and essentially making the same mistakes."
"Jupiter's Legacy" has an infinite number of comic book parallels.
However, the deepest connection that Skyfox actor Matt Lanter sees might not be what you'd
expect.
The actor noted the similarities between his "Jupiter's Legacy" character and his role
as Anakin Skywalker on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" — and the outdated rules of conduct
that plague the heroes of both worlds.
Lanter chatted with Looper during an exclusive interview, where he compared the rigid nature
of the Jedi Council to the strict rules of the Union in "Jupiter's Legacy."
He said,
"The Jedi Council seems antiquated and just doesn't apply in every situation anymore.
And the Jedi Council is so black and white [in its thinking].
I think Anakin realized that things aren't black and white.
In fact, there are shades of gray, and that's exactly what's going on in 'Jupiter's Legacy.'"
In both cases, these unwavering rules lead to the downfall of an otherwise relatively
moral hero.
The fickle beast that is Mother Nature something that almost every series or movie deals with
at some point during shooting.
When the weather decides to do something unexpected, production has two options: Roll with it,
or halt production.
Luckily for "Jupiter's Legacy," when the skies opened for a dramatic snowstorm, the weather
only enhanced the scene's otherworldly quality.
During an exclusive interview with Looper, cinematographer Nicole Hirsch Whittaker — director
of photography for several episodes of "Jupiter's Legacy" — revealed the perils of filming
in an unpredictable Canadian climate.
In one episode in particular, the series' seventh, the weather wasn't cooperating, leading
to heavy — and unscripted — snowfall.
While they were shooting a scene in the woods over the course of a few days, Whittaker explained,
"We all went back to our hotels and woke up in the morning, and there was two feet of
snow on the ground, which is very Canadian.
We were like, 'Oh my gosh, there's a snowstorm.'
So basically we got to set, everybody talked about it and decided this is an island that's
alive, so let's embrace it.
[...] So they started writing, and within an hour we had a new script."
Luckily for fans, the surprise snow lends an incredibly realistic backdrop to the scene.
Given that the characters head to the island to claim their superpowers, they deal with
a whole host of challenges — now including unpredictable weather.
The first flashback we get in "Jupiter's Legacy" kicks off the events of The Great Depression
as the stock market crashes.
While it's undoubtedly a fascinating point in American history, it's a unique time period
to place the origin story of a group of slowly aging superheroes.
However, the period makes sense given the year in which Millar began writing the comics.
2008 marked a steady economic decline, leading to a financial crisis of the likes the world
hadn't seen since the Great Depression.
"'The Death of Capitalism' — that is one hell of a headline."
Millar told The Hollywood Reporter in April 2021,
"When I sat down to do this — it was three years before I actually [wrote] it, during
the financial crash in 2008 — I said, 'I'm not going to do this unless I can make it
the greatest superhero story of all time.'"
Setting the superheroes' origin stories in the late '20s with Great Depression ties certainly
set the story apart from many of its counterparts.
The choice roots the series in a reality that almost everyone can relate to, and offers
a unique vantage point for the story to cover.
As we've seen with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe, there's no shortage
of stories waiting to be told when film studios decide to tap into comics characters' legacies.
With plenty of source material waiting to be mined, "Jupiter's Legacy" seemed poised
to enjoy a multiple-season run on Netflix — but any hopes fans may have had for follow-up
installments were dashed in early June of 2021, when Millar announced that the cast
had been released from its contracts.
Although Millar indicated that he hadn't quite given up hope for more "Jupiter's Legacy"
onscreen at some point, in the short term, Netflix's decision means the show has been
canceled.
On the bright side, this frees Millar up for other projects, like the upcoming "Supercrooks"
series he's set to debut for the platform.
It's still a bitter pill to swallow for viewers who came to love the "Jupiter's Legacy" characters
throughout the show, but they can always turn to the comics for more stories — the latest
chapter of the saga, "Jupiter's Legacy: Requiem," was already set to begin arriving in comic
shops when the show's cancellation was announced.
So, where exactly does Millarworld, and more specifically, "Jupiter's Legacy," fall in
the comic book landscape?
If you ask Matt Lanter, he'll tell you that it's the future of comics — and deserves
a spot at the top with DC and Marvel.
In fact, we did ask Matt Lanter during a Looper exclusive interview.
He said,
"I think five years from now, everyone's going to know that it's Millarworld, it's DC, and
it's Marvel.
So get to know these characters now, be the first on the train and have fun with it, man."
That's a pretty big claim, but it's not without merit.
Even though the series isn't moving forward on Netflix, the show still made a huge impression
on viewers with a rock-solid debut on the streamer, coming in as the number one program
on the platform upon its release.
Additionally, as far as box office is concerned, Millar's 2010 film "Kick-Ass" brought in over
$96 million worldwide, and "Kingsman: The Secret Service" raked in over $414 million.
Those are numbers that are in the range of or even surpass some early MCU projects like
"Captain America: The First Avenger," which brought in over $370 million.
In other words, just because "Jupiter's Legacy" may be over on Netflix, that doesn't mean
it's not still the start of something big.
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