His name is associated with countless series and films that have had a huge impact on popular culture, starting with Capitán América: Civil War and Logan , adaptations of comics he wrote during his time at Marvel. His privileged imagination also inspired other kinds of films, such as Wanted, with Angelina Jolie, Kingsman: Servicio secreto with Colin Firth and Kick-Ass: Listo para machacar with Nicolas Cage. Therefore, when Mark Millar began to dream of bringing his successful cartoon The chosen one (later reissued as American Jesus) to the screen, the most logical thing was to discuss it with Matthew Vaughn, the successful director who after launching Daniel Craig’s career with Layer Cake in 2004 added to the first blockbuster with Kick-Ass. And, although the project that he directed did not prosper, later Vaughn was responsible for the Kingsman trilogy. The truth is that, in the meantime, Millar developed Millarworld, a company dedicated to new television and film projects based on his stories, which in 2017 was sold to Netflix.
The first joint production was the miniseries Jupiter’s Legacy in 2021, starring Josh Duhamel. And despite the fact that the television adaptation of The chosen one was about to start shooting in 2019, everything stopped with the pandemic. What’s surprising is that, although the comic is set in the United States, the Scottish cartoonist had no problem moving the action to Mexico and developing it as a miniseries in which it is mostly spoken in Spanish, with some few scenes in English.
El elegido, the six episodes of which arrived this week on Netflix, faithfully reflects the rest of the plot that Miller created with Peter Gross: a 12-year-old American boy, Jodie (Bobby Luhnov, born in England, but raised in Mexico) leads a quiet life in a coastal town in Baja California, where he has taken refuge with his mother Sarah. Despite the fact that they both hide a secret, the days are quiet for Jodie, with friends of the same age. But everything changes the day a truck breaks a bridge and falls on top of him, a terrible accident from which he comes out unscathed. From that moment, Jodie will begin to discover that he has somewhat unusual powers, such as turning water into wine, making the injured walk, and many other things that will make him believe that he is Jesus reincarnated.
El elegi also features Tenoch Huerta in a supporting role, as a man who knows a special child is coming into the world and is dedicated to finding him. The other great figure is Carlos Bardem, who plays a priest. At the head of the project is the Mexican Everardo Gout, who, after making his debut in Días de gracia in 2011, in which Huerta and Bardem participated, developed a successful career on the other side of the border, with the direction of episodes of Banshee and Snowpiercer, as well as the feature film The Infinite Purge. Closer to science fiction than religious mysticism, the new series may have room to run, as in the next volume of the comic Jodie becomes an antichrist who reaches the presidency of the United States and starts a global war.
