Mark Millar Wants Johnny Depp And Brad Pitt For NEMESIS

This past week, Bleedingcool and Deadline reported that 20th Century Fox bought the screen rights to NEMESIS based on the graphic novel written by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Wanted) and illustrated by Steven McNiven. Published by Marvel this past spring, it’s currently on its second issue. Scott Free will produce and Tony Scott is set to direct. They’re moving fast with this project, already talking to a screenwriter for the adaptation. Graphic novelist Millar who’ll serve as executive producer tole Empire which two specific big names he wants as the two key characters in NEMESIS..

“With Nemesis, you’ve got two great roles for two A-list stars,”
“The thing is, one guy has to be as good as the other. You’ve got Holmes versus Moriarty here or Batman versus The Joker, so each one has got to be a $20 million actor, really. I think you could go for the A+ list and get Johnny Depp as Nemesis and Brad Pitt as Blake Morrow.”

“When I was writing the comic, I genuinely saw Johnny Depp as Nemesis,”
“He’s a thin-faced guy, slightly creepy, a cross between Heath Ledger and Christian Bale, and someone who could pull off both those things at the same time is Depp. He would get it. He goes slightly crazy in his roles!”

“He’s [Morrow] Commissioner Gordon meets Sherlock Holmes, so it’s got to be a big physical policeman who you feel could stand up for himself in a physical fight,” says Millar. “It’s got to be somebody who can take a punch. You couldn’t really get anybody who’s too cerebral. He’d have to be a very physical actor so it would need to be a Pitt. Or maybe even a Liam Neeson.”

NEMESIS is about Batman-like billionaire genius Matt Anderson who becomes a masked villain, out to avenge the death of his beloved parents who were also villains. His number one target is police chief Blake Morrow who captured his parents. Nemesis’ cop-fighting vendetta brings him to the masterplan of taking D.C. and President hostage and finally getting his hand on Morrow. You can read his complete plot over at Wikipedia,
When asked if Scott is the right man for this kind of job, Millar implied that Scott’s always wanted to take on a comic-book-based movie, this is the material that he’s been looking for..

“Tony Scott is the ultimate comic book director who’s never made a comic book movie,”
“For fifteen years people have been asking him to [make a comic book movie], but he’s turned it all down because the material never really excited him. The one thing you can’t say about Tony’s stuff is that it’s not family-friendly, safe fun. He’s never going to do a Fantastic Four or a Spider-Man. But the minute he saw something with Air Force One being taken down, the President being taken hostage and Japanese skyscrapers falling down, it began to look more like a Tony Scott movie.”
“You couldn’t do a movie like this any cheaper than $150 million,”
“It’s going to go really big.”

I have yet to read the book NEMESIS but what do you think? Does the concept of having the villain at the center instead your usual antihero or typical protagonist come off morally askew, so to speak? Or does this seem to you like a very unique take on revenge movies that might just work on the screen.