James Wan is going to direct a Magic Order TV show pilot from Mark Millar. Considering that Wan has only been making feature length movies for roughly fifteen years, the degree of success he’s managed to achieve in that time is nothing short of astounding. Most Hollywood filmmakers are lucky to have one popular franchise to their name. Wan, however, is responsible for quite a few.
Whether it’s horror or action or taking on the gigantic world of comic book superheroes, Wan has managed to establish himself as a young filmmaker with the ability to churn out hits. His work on The Conjuring made great strides in reviving a supernatural horror genre that had been stagnant for too long, just as his time on Aquaman has resulted in yet another highly successful superhero franchise. However, while his film career is established at this point, Wan’s work in television has been relatively small, with producer credits on the upcoming TV series Swamp Thing, as well as on CBS’s MacGyver, for which he directed an episode.
According to a new press release from Netflix, it appears as though Wan is getting set to make even more headway into television. The streaming giant is reporting that The Magic Order, a new series by famed comic book writer Mark Millar, will have its pilot episode directed by Wan, who, alongside Millar, will also take on executive producer duties. The series is based on Millar’s comic of the same name, which was created in-house for Netflix and later turned into a comic book.
The Magic Order details the challenges faced by five different magic families who have been sworn with protecting the world from the forces of darkness. By day, the members of the The Magic Order are regular citizens, indistinguishable from anyone else. But at night, the order is an organized group of sorcerers, wizards, and magicians. When members of the order begin to be killed off, the surviving members must band together and stop the killers before the forces of darkness are victorious. The story’s central protagonists are the Moonstone family, who live in Moonstone Castle, which is part of an oil painting at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Millar has previously described The Magic Order as “The Sopranos meets Harry Potter,” and it’s clear from Millar’s other adapted efforts like Kick-Ass or Kingsman that there is often a dark, yet humorous slant to his work. This should work well for Wan, who has proven that he revels in telling stories that are shrouded in darkness. It’s hard to say whether the concept of wizards and magic has already been done to death in the years since Harry Potter, but The Magic Order seems as good a shot as any at discovering whether or not audiences are still hungry for more magical tales.
Next: James Wan’s 10 Best Movies, Ranked
Source: Netflix
