Mark Millar explains Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men departure

Matthew Vaughn’s sudden departure from X-Men: Days Of Future Past came somewhat out of the blue when it was announced last month, but finally an explanation may have come to light, courtesy of Mark Millar.

“What we’re doing is that Kick-Ass 2 is filming now, and next year we’ll start production on Secret Service which I did with Dave Gibbons,” says Millar. “Matthew and I have been talking about that for years.

“We thought Matthew was going to do X-Men first, but we found out there were actually a few imitators of Secret Service in the works… People are always trying to rip you off. Somebody will start to work on a spec screenplay about your idea.”

“There are three other projects I know of now about a James Bond kind of guy taking a street kid and turning him into a spy. Three screenplays were already going through Hollywood about this! So Matthew and I said, ‘Fuck this. We’re not letting anyone steal our ideas.’”

Which kind of puts paid to the rumours that Vaughn had dropped out in order to direct the new Star Wars movie. Still, at least fans of Millar and Vaughn’s previous work will now have something to look forward to…

Meanwhile, X-Men: Days Of Future Past opens in the UK on 18 July 2014.