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Wanted's Mark Millar Responds to Pooh Writer Mayhem

by Alex Billington
April 21, 2009

A couple of days ago we reported on Universal's choice to hire a writer named Evan Spiliotopoulos to work on the script for Wanted 2. However, Spiliotopoulos's only past writing credits include such Disney classics as Pooh's Heffalump Movie and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. Everyone I know has made fun of Evan for this, even though I try to remind people that he's probably just a writer working in Disney for the moment, but capable of so much more. Well, Wanted creator Mark Millar chimed in via his own forums today and states exactly what always I thought about Spiliotopoulos - he's got more in him.

"Never listen to any commentators as they never know anything about who's coming back, etc. It's just speculation and 99% of the time these guys don't have access to the people who know. Wanted 2 is being made in a very tight circle at the moment," Millar says in response to an MTV article complaining about Spiliotopoulos' involvement. He continues, "As a producer on the thing, I'm excited. I know who's in it and after doing $342 million at the box office, we have series [sic] money to spend on everything from cast to crew to script." And lastly, the most important part: "This guy is supposed to be really good. He did a GREAT action script recently (on an unproduced movie) and that's what got him this gig."

What most people don't know about Hollywood is that there's a lot going on behind closed doors. For example, this guy may have been working for Disney since 2003, but he probably wants to write other things then scripts about Pooh and Tinker Bell. So the action script that he wrote, which has probably been bought or is making its rounds in Hollywood, has gotten him other jobs. Just because he has worked on Pooh previously doesn't mean he's a writer who should be laughed at. It just means that's the path he chose. This story is being blown way out of proportion, so I'm glad at least Millar was able to set things straight.

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Bobby Hill

I agree with you Alex. Everyone has to start off somewhere.
Scott McHenry

I wish I could make money while writing for Disney all the while writing my own stuff. No shame in that.
The Duke of New York

yes. for god's sake! let's get fired up over preserving the honor and integrity of "wanted"! it's a national treasure and an all time classic we must preserve it for future generations! if we let this slide we may never ever see another film adapted from a video game or comic book! oh, wait maybe that's not so bad.
Spider94

im still laughing,omg a pooh writer. i can see the movie being rated G with all these fairytale creatures with water guns blasting people and havin fun then they go dance in a circle and sing la la la la and then pooh pops up out of no where and says "hello yall wanna curve the water?" omg this is too funny no offense there
Darunia

The bit about the "series money" is the comment that interests me the most. Obviously, 340 million is a lot of money, but wanted 1 had a budget of 75 million, i wonder how much higher Universal is willing to go in an M rated action movie.
Fisherr

Totally agree 100% with Alex and #1 We don't have to make fun of people because of very simple projects they worked on,we need to wait and see. I have faith in him.
Hey Ya

Disney screws people in the talent area as they never let them break free and they could have potential. Not saying the cast of High School Musical needs credit aside from future porn titles, there are some.
Darunia

Tim Burton worked at Disney...
D

Everyone I know hated the first one and probably won't even see the second one. First one was garbage, this one is going to be garbage. Any more movies starring the main guy will be garbage.
Dan

Mark Millar also told us in an interview that the original movie was true to the comic... pfft so much for that. How are we suppose to trust him on this pile.
http://www.onfrozenblog.com/ OrderedChaos

Right on Alex! Evan's a friend of mine, and I've read many of his non-Disney scripts -- they're really quite good. Granted, I'm not totally objective, but he definitely knows his way around an action flick; don't count his Disney pay-the-bills work against him. Evan also wrote "Battle for Terra," the CG flick which opens May 1 and promises to be a bit different from the Heffalump movie.
http://www.feoamante.com Feo Amante

I came to LA to get involved with making Horror Thriller movies. I have Horror Thriller scripts, run a Horror Thriller website, but the two scripts I've sold so far were both for an animated comedy - and both have yet to be produced! Damn good money though! You'd never want to turn your back on the kind of money they offer for scripts here.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/4120/sppunx06oa5.jpg Crapola

I think he should keep it real and underground and torture the motherfucker to death for being a punk beeeeyyyotch, because writers is the realest gangsters in this game. Wait a minute they write scripts for money? How can people even complain before it's even been written? And on MTV no less, what do they know? You know MTV refused to show Herbie Hancock in a video because they thought a black person being on tv would be too much for their white audience, so they made him make a video with robots?!
The Duke of New York

Since when does anything these people say matter anyway? How many times have they made remarks before a movie comes out that turned out to not matte ror be true? How many times do we get excited at something when these people say something encouraging only to find that the movie has none of what was promised? THEY should learn to not comment on a single thing, other than who is in it and who is making it. everything else is a lie until the movie comes out and we are either impressed, dissapointed or indifferent. and WE should learn to ignor them and only pay attention to the movies themselves.
chris

one thing about these cartoon writers is that they could be on drugs...how many times have you watched something with your kids \ just channel hopping and gone 'wow, thats fucked up, were the writers on LSD'? You know, the floating dog with extendable legs saving the small child from the evil wizard who's beard is actually the clouds in the sky type thing Take one of those guys, give them an M rated action sci fi movie and it could turn out to be one crazy movie!
drake

spider 94, you are being a dick, JJ Abrams started off with Felicity and now he's directing Star Trek.
Spider94

HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OMFG lol at #16 omg lmaoo