Joe Cornish Set Direct Mark Millar’s Starlight

The Attack The Block helmer Joe Cornish looks set to (write and) direct his third film. That film is set to be for 20th Century Studios and Mark Millar‘s comic book Starlight.

It’s a great time for fans of Millar’s comic book titles. The Scottish creator a few years back signed a deal with Netflix to bring many titles from his Millarworld to their channel. The first one will be Jupiter’s Legacy  arriving next month, an intergenerational family conflict inspired by the Golden Age Of Comic books.

20th Century Studios themselves have had a long relationship with Millar with Wanted, The Kingsman films as well as Kick-Ass.  Starlight film rights have been at the studio for a long time, before Netflix signed the deal with Millar, even before Disney bought the studio. Millar himself has written many stories for various titles for Marvel, ironically another company now owned by Disney.

Related: No Legend Lives Forever In Jupiter’s Legacy New Trailer

Starlight was first published by Image Comics back in 2013 and drawn by Goran Parlov. The story has been described as a mixture of Flash Gordon space hero  Duke McQueen who saved the universe. No one believed him, 35 years later married with children he has a call to action, will they believe him now?

Here’s the comic book synopsis – Forty years ago, Duke McQueen was the space hero who saved the universe. But then he came back home, got married, had kids, and grew old. Now his children have left and his wife has died, leaving him alone with nothing except his memories…until a call comes from a distant world asking him back for his final and greatest adventure.

Many people will know Cornish from his 2011 directorial feature debut Attack The Bock.  The sci-fi action comedy is seen as the film the launch pad  for John Boyega who would go onto  Star Wars. It was 8 years later before Cornish would direct again The Kid Who Would Be King. That film received a mixed response with many calling it an underrated film. In between these films he was the main writing credit on Marvel’s Ant-Man.

With two films in 10 years, Cornish in very picky on what projects he wants to work on. Many fans desire a sequel to his much loved debut, if this film is his next project it looks a great choice.  If he does  he’ll take over from the original helmer Gary Whitta with Simon Kinberg producing along side Audrey Chon and Nina Park.