Genre: Comic Book Adaptation/Action.
Studio:
Universal Pictures.
Production Company:
Awesome Entertainment.
Project Phase: Script Stage.
Who's In It: Will Smith (Mike Collins).
Who's Making It: Rob Liefeld (Screenwriter); Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, Will Smith, James Lassiter (Producers).
Premise: As the millennium draws to a close, an epic struggle is about to take place -- and whomever has the talisman of power will find himself in the center of that battle.
Comments:
Rob Liefeld made a name for himself back in the early nineties, bring Marvel's The New Mutants comic out of a sales slump and re-tooling it into another powerhouse of Marvel's X-books line, X-Force. Then, along with a cadre of other Marvel artists, Liefeld quit and started up his own publishing company, Image Comics. Since those early days in 1991, Liefeld's been sued by Marvel, by his Image co-founders, launched another publishing company, and dipped his feet into Hollywood. The Mark was originally set up for Tom Cruise a few years back, but the project got stuck between the cracks (remember Doom's IV? Anyone? Bueller??) Now it seems Liefeld's got some new star heat on-board: Will Smith. With the possibility that Smith has got his own Batman-like franchise in development, expect us to keep a close eye on this project.
Release Date: Summer 2000.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
December 9, 1997... It's expected Will Smith will enter superheroics after he completes his work on Enemy of the State and The Wild, Wild West. [Page submitted by by dynamic duo of 'Deadpool' and 'Widgett'.]
April 11, 1998... Last week news broke that Rob Liefeld's Awesome Entertainment is in serious financial trouble. ZENtertainment reported that many of Liefeld's comic books, including Youngblood and Supreme, had been cancelled. The question is how these changes may affect the production of this movie. [Thanks to Jonah and ZENtertainment for their tips.]
April 28, 1998... Today it was announced that the blockbuster team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich would also produce this film. It's noteworthy for two reasons: one, Devlin and Emmerich signed a big contract with Sony Pictures last year, virtually guaranteeing Sony the duo until the middle of the next decade (offically Sony Pictures said it had no objection to Devlin and Emmerich producing the film for Universal Pictures.) Second reason: this brings a lot of notice to the project. Sure Smith is hot and comic book savvy readers will scope out the pic because Liefeld is involved -- but now that two heavyweights of summer tentpole movie events are also backing this horse, we can bet Universal brass were smiling today.
First Smith has to complete his assignment in The Wild, Wild West, follow that up with K-Pax and then he'll get around to this one. That makes it easily the summer of the double-O. [Contributed by Joe Hanna, 'Ultraman', Thomas Martens, M. Talon, and anonymous.]
May 2, 1998... One of our comic book savvy readers sent us their take on what little we know of the film's plot and a similarity between it and a comic book from the 80's...
"The Hollywood Reporter described The Mark in this way: 'Set in New York in 2001, The Mark is the story of Mike Collins (Smith), a young man who finds himself imbued with superhuman abilities when the last act of a dying stranger is to transfer an indelible 'mark' to Mike's hand.
"Now about nine or ten years ago, Marvel Comics was in the midst of an experimental line of comics called 'New Universe'. The flagship title of the New Universe line was a series called 'Star Brand', a story about a young man who found himself imbued with superhuman abilities when the last act of a dying alien was to transfer the Star Brand (an indelible 'mark') to his hand. Hmm.
"In the series, the Brand turned out to be an incredible weapon, and the pivot around which a galactic war turned. The protagonist (whose name escapes me) eventually tried to rid himself of the Brand by transferring it to a rock, which had the lovely effect of turning his home town (Pittsburgh, I think) into a ten-mile-wide smoking hole."
We remember Star Brand (created by Jim Shooter, then Marvel's Chief Editor). It followed the exploits of Ken Connell, a young man who was given the Brand by the dying 'alien' (later revealed to actually be a human), and who later levelled Pittsburgh due to the unforeseen power magnitude of the Brand. Coincidentally, the similarities between the origins of the film's protagonist Mike Collins another comic book superhero was voiced by a well-respected friend to CA: they saw similarity between the origin of DC's original Green Lantern, test pilot Hal Jordan, receiving his power ring from a dying alien.
Ultimately, we think that while there may be similarities between the basic premises of Star Brand and the premise of The Mark, the same could also be said about many other superhero concepts. If we had a dollar every time we read an origin issue where a mysterious stranger offered someone some cryptic device capable of transforming them into a superbeing, we'd take you all out to dinner. However, if the Mark is in the shape of the Star Brand...then we'll get nervous. [Scoop sent in by anonymous.]
May 28, 1998... Hmm. The IMDb states that this project has come to a screeching halt due to a lack of interest on the part of Mr. Smith. Whassup? [Thanks to 'Widgett' for passing us along 'CCB's sharp-eyed observation.]
August 23, 1998... The Consortium website breaks the news that the original screenwriter, Rob Liefeld, has now left this project and apparently not by his own choise. That would mean it's extremely unlikely that Awesome Enteratinment is still the film's developer. Our scooper also informs us that veteran X-Files producers and writers James Wong and Glen Morgan are now re-writing the script. Devlin and Emmerich are still attached as exec producers along with Smith to star, but the film's projected summer 2000 release date is now in jeopardy. [Thanks to 'GF 2020' for the scoop; originally appeared on the Consortium site.]
October 29, 1998... "Your last scooper reported on the re-writes for the project. And the reason for that? To reduce costs. From what I heard, the original script had an astronomical budget. There is a climactic battle to save the world (in that most original of locations, Manhattan) that is supposed to make the F/X of Starship Troopers or ID4 look like a high-school video production class. This was confirmed in a newspaper interview (Chicago Sun-Times, I think) with Emmerich and Devlin, who were excited about The Mark, but somewhat concerned about the enormous undertaking it would be. In fact, one of them joked about how they're always using New York City as a site of destruction in their movies.
"That's all for me..." [Credit 'Chase'.]
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