A SCOTTISH writer’s comic book that is so violent and sexually explicit that it is sold only to adults is to be made into a £50m Hollywood movie.

Mark Millar has signed a deal with Universal Pictures to bring his comic strip Wanted to the big screen and the rap artist Eminem is tipped to play the lead.

The deal will be finalised this week with the Glasgow-born Millar, who made his name as chief writer at Marvel Comics in New York, expected to secure a six-figure fee plus a share of the profits.

Millar, who turned Superman into a communist, created the world’s first gay superheroes, and made Batman a terrorist, will be executive producer.

Wanted, a six-part comic book series written and owned by Millar, is aimed at a mature audience and has a warning that “some material may not be suitable for children”.

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, is said to be a fan of the series, and stocked up on the comics when he played in Glasgow recently. His album, The Eminem Show, had a comic-book theme, and he dressed up as Batman’s sidekick, Robin, in the video for his single Without Me.

Millar is in final negotiations with Universal Pictures, but has agreed his fee and credits, and is delighted with his first big film deal.

“I’m really excited about the possibility of Marshall playing the lead role, and Universal have already been in talks with his people, and also lined up one of the top five producers in Hollywood,” he said. “I had three years of writing about superheroes, so last year I wanted to do something that was really bad.

“The plot of Wanted is ideal for a film treatment. Films about the bad guys are always far more interesting and this is the most violent and evil thing that I have ever written.”

The comic books, which were drawn by the artist JG Jones, tell the story of Wesley Gibson, a spineless office worker who is bullied by his boss and whose girlfriend Lisa is cheating on him with his best friend — until he discovers that he is the son of the most evil supervillain on the planet.

When his father, a bisexual villain called the Killer, is apparently assassinated, he is kidnapped and taken to the centre of the meta-human criminal network, responsible for all crime around the world.

His father, wracked with guilt at leaving Gibson’s mother when he was an infant, has left him his entire fortune. But in order to inherit the £25m in cash, and a string of houses and cars, Gibson is forced to join the fraternity for six months and learn how to become an assassin himself.

The final parts of the comic book series will be published later this year, but in a final twist, Gibson will become a stronger man and will kill one of the people that he comes to care about most.

Millar, who will be a consultant on the film, said that the role of Gibson’s father could be played by Tommy Lee Jones, the star of the Men in Black films and Batman Forever.

The film’s producer also plans to approach agents for Beyoncé Knowles, the singer, who was reportedly keen to play Lois Lane in a new film of Superman, and has asked to see all upcoming scripts for movies based on comic books.

Millar, who has set up his own company, www.millarworld.biz, has created a number of controversial characters. In the DC Comics publication, The Authority, he devised the gay superheroes, Midnighter and Apollo — a camp version of Superman, who outsold the dated hero three times over.

He toughened up the Incredible Hulk, re-created the X-Men, and last year wrote Superman: Red Son, where the hero’s space capsule lands in Russia and he becomes a Russian superhero.

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