Prime Video/Amazon’s Invincible (based upon exec producer Robert Kirkman’s comic) has proven that an animated series can still hit hard while skewering superheroes in manner of The Boys (from showrunner Eric Kripke and author Garth Ennis), and there will be more where that debauched trip came from.
Kirkman’s other brainchild (beyond The Walking Dead) will land reportedly soon for a third season of Mark Grayson/Invincible (Steven Yeun) wrestling with the wreckage of what his father, Nolan/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), has wrought upon Earth. The show’s violence happens to be even more graphic than The Boys with the physicality of many supporting characters benefiting from 2D animation. It’s hard to imagine, for starters, Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen) being anything less than challenging in live-action form.
Speaking of Rogen, a lingering question has existed since Hollywood Reporter first revealed in 2017 that he, Evan Goldberg, and Kirkman were developing a live-action Invincible film. Kirkman had declared that his comic book’s “surprising, edgy, shocking, and oftentimes blood-soaked story couldn’t be in more capable hands [w]ith the team of Rogen, Goldberg and Universal.” Rogen and Goldberg added, “No matter how much damage it causes our bodies, minds, and our most intimate relationships with those we love, we will not rest until Invincible is as great a movie as it deserves to be.”
Fast forward to 2021, and the animated Invincible series arrived, and we could have said goodbye to 2024 with no inkling of whether that live-action dream will come true. Fortunately, The Direct caught up with Kirkman at the recent San Diego Comic-Con, and he insisted that the live-action movie will still happen even though “it may take so long that Timothée Chalamet can play Omni-Man.” Well then, yet there’s more:
“It’s still in development. We’re still working with Universal. You know, the show is going so well. I think the movie absolutely has to be perfect. And so it’s taking a lot of time, like getting the pieces aligned and getting everything to work so that we can come out and make it as good as it can possibly be. So it’s been in development for a long time, and it’s probably going to be in development for a while longer. Just because, in relation to the show, it has to provide a different experience, it has to still be true to ‘Invincible’ in some interesting ways.”
Kirkman insisted that the movie will provide a “new experience” for viewers, but “it has to be better than the show” to make it worth a trip to the multiplex, and “[I]t’s very difficult, but we’ve got a good team behind it.” In Robert Kirkman we trust? Surely, he wouldn’t lead us astray on this project, and it does sound more likely than a Rick Grimes movie ever did.
Meanwhile, Invincible‘s third season is on track to return in 2025 with Yeun, Simmons, Sandra Oh (Debbie Grayson), and approximately 800 other cast members along for the ride. See you then.