The Prophet movie is still a ways off — after all, it’s not like they have been secretly filming an unfinished screenplay during the pandemic shutdown — but so far, creator Rob Liefeld is excited about the conversations he’s having, and the pages he’s seeing come in from Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow co-creator Marc Guggenheim. News that the pair were collaborating on the project came earlier in the pandemic, and in May, both Guggenheim and Liefeld commented on the excitement they had for the project — and not much more, since it was in its infancy and they have been doing this long enough not to spill too many beans.
During our coverage of Comic-Con @ Home, though, ComicBook.com spoke with Liefeld and convinced him to tell us one little thing. What, we asked, maked Prophet special in a crowded field of superhero TV and film?
“There has not an Image Comics movie since 1997,” Liefeld began. Spawn was the one and done, right? And…there has not been an ‘original seven’ Image Comics movie. The books that these people hold so dear. Studio 8, who is financing, making [Prophet], made the deal with Marc. And look, they knew how excited I was for Marc. When this happens, a movie like Prophet and Studio 8 puts the feelers out, all the agencies send their best writers. They want that job, they want their guy to land that gig. There were bunch of people who were trying to get the job. Marc, obviously when I heard he was in the mix, I knew he was the best. I know Marc, but I also know [eight] seasons of Arrow. You don’t go wrong. I was telling my wife, ‘That show was far from a guarantee.’ That was his vision, he executed it, he took it off the tarmac and it’s been in flight all these seasons. He knows comics, he knows film. People don’t give that show enough [credit] for being the bedrock of the entire, you know, Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow, everything that came after. So I knew we were in good hands. Marc and I talked over the script, Here’s the deal, man. It’s it’s got some big, wow imagery. The one thing about Image Comics, we told visual stories. Marc has really paid attention to the visual components as well as the character components. ‘Cause if you don’t care about the guy, you don’t care about [the story]. Prophet, as much as he is Captain America based, he is Rip Van Winkle. That story haunted me as a kid. And Marc understands that when you wake up from being asleep for 80 years, your reactions are going to be different. And there are multiple ways that every character can take that awakening. The whole thing with Prophet though, is he was not a very good guy before he went to sleep. Captain America was a Boy Scout, who woke up a Boy Scout. The thing with Prophet and what Marc has done so well, John Prophet was not a good man. And when John Prophet awakens, we will see if he embraces the opportunity to become a good man this time around. And that’s why Marc is so important, ’cause he’s such a great writer. So we’re really excited.”
Keep your eyes on ComicBook.com for more from Comic-Con @ Home. Prophet is expected to get production moving once the pandemic’s impact on production has eased a bit.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
