Imagine this, right. You know that Peter Jackson one, right, he used to be fat and doing Lord of the Rings and now he’s thin and doing The Hobbit. But he’s from this place called New Zealand right? I mean we all know about Zeeland, the westernmost province of the Netherlands and primary Dutch tourist destination for Germans, but did you know there’s a new one discovered by seafaring explorer Abel Tasman in 1642?
Image via ComicBookTherapy
Mind: blown. Anyway, comic book empresario Mark Millar wants to do for Scotland what Jackson and LotR did for his homeland. His production company, the unassumingly-named MillarWorld Productions, already has a range of surprisingly high-rent films and sequels in the pipeline over the next few years, and solid plans to film key scenes in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The first project, American Jesus, imagines the second coming of the Messiah as an American boy (bien sûr), who flees to Scotland to escape his enemies before battling the Anti-Christ. Controversy-baiting plot aside, Millar reassured his fans:
As a practising Catholic I will treat it reverentially. I already have the Mitchell Library in Glasgow penned in for a very important scene, simply because I love that building so much.
I also plan to shoot on location at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. That’s because the Salvador Dalí painting of Christ of Saint John of the Cross is crucial to the plot.
Also on the horizon is the first in a planned series of films called Supercrooks, a group of international, superpowered bank robbers who target countries unprotected by superheroes. “I’ve got a big setpiece I’ve written in the book around Edinburgh Castle,” says Millar, “so hopefully that’s another big location we can use here.”
The news comes hot on the tails of recent shoots in Glasgow city centre of World War Z and Cloud Atlas, with Scarlett Johansson’s Under The Skin project bowling out in a petrol station in sunny Wishaw earlier this week. Millar wants to keep a wee lid on all the hysteria though.
The only reason these big movies are here is because of the weak Pound and the strong Canadian Dollar — where most big movies are normally made. But they’ll disappear to the next cheap place as soon as that changes. Then we’d be left with a very expensive film studio.
It will kick-start our own industry and bring talent and ideas forward, because suddenly it won’t be about dealing with Hollywood on the other side of the world, it’ll be on our own doorstep. If New Zealand can do it, why not us? It would give the Scottish economy an incredible boost.
And if he implements it all after independence we can keep the proceeds and turn Scotland into the forward thinking utopia Hume always dreamed of. You heard it here first. Unless you read it in the Scottish Sun, like we did.
Do you want further justification for secession from perfidious Albion? Or maybe just have some nice films made in your back yard? Let us know in the comments.
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October 28, 2011
Movies