Fresh off of Kick-Ass, a movie made outside of the studio system with Nic Cage and McLovin, because of the film’s depictions of teens in violent situations, director Matthew Vaughn and comic-booker Mark Millar are ready to tackle Millar’s American Jesus together.  A bit about the situation, from THR :

Vaughn is eyeing Millar’s “American Jesus” as his next directing vehicle, which would be produced by Vaughn and his Marv Films partner Kris Thykier and financed independently in the same manner as “Kick-Ass.”

The story centers on the return of Christ in the modern world, leading to a final confrontation with the Antichrist in a bid to save humanity.

The book, made with artist Peter Gross, originally appeared as a three-issue miniseries in 2006 with the title “Chosen.” When Millar, one of the top writers in the comics field, decided to continue the story as a trilogy of miniseries, the overarching title became “American Jesus.” The second installment is subtitled “The Resurrection” and is due out in the fall.

Kick-Ass sounds like a pretty cool project on its own and I like the fact that it appears that this project will look to be done outside of the system as well.  For those that don’t know much about Vaughn, his Layer Cake is a great film that helped catapult one Daniel Craig into the running to play one Agent 007.  With A.Jesus, the story offers a boatload of potential and possibility.  How closely it uses the Bible as it’s source material will be telling, but this definitely sounds like an interesting project to be on the look out for.  Anyone with knowledge of the comic book care to chime in and educate us? It’d be appreciated.