In terms of “specious claims vs. actual progress” there is perhaps no shittier source of news than Mark Millar, who has proven time and time again to be a shameless bullshitter. Be it a combination of general naiveté and a habit of opening his mouth about legitimate projects before they’re locked, or an outright devotion to self-aggrandizing hucksterism, Mark Millar can pretty much never be trusted as a source of information. He’s spun nonsense about his own directorial projects, casting and budgeting on adaptations of his materials by others, and on the production timeline of Kick-Ass 2, just for starters.
Still though, we usually end up covering his crazy statements because his name is on major projects (he was made a Marvel adaptation consultant at Fox earlier this year) and because he’s usually got the stones to speak about even bigger projects and people. In this case it’s Millar speaking out about what drew Matthew Vaughn off of X-Men (leading to Singer’s return), which has been used to counter the reporting that Matthew Vaughn is at the head of the Star Wars VII pack. While I ultimately think there’s been enough counter-rumors to suggest Vaughn is not necessarily going to end up on that job a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, its been pointed out by Frosty from Collider that Millar’s explanation comes from before the Star Wars announcement. So the idea that Vaughn just couldn’t 
stand all the spec scripts out there riffing on his Millar’s work that he just had to ditch X-Men to start up this other project, may likely turn out to be nonsense in light of a Star Wars announcement. Doesn’t necessarily mean Millar was outright lying this time, so much as filling in gaps with his own wishful thinking. Still, here is Millar’s spiel…
“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. 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.’”
So there you go- according to Millar, Vaughn has dumped X-Men to head off imitators at the pass on Secret Service, a comics series first published earlier this year about a young James Bond type. It’s possible that’s true, and if that’s the case you’ll certainly see info here if more official announcements are made.
More on this as it develops…
via Total Film