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Round and round we go this week with two major releases of two completely different ilks. On one hand we have WALL-E, the particularly cute and immensely curious little robot from Pixar. On the other, a gratuitously violent, fast-paced, bullet-bending ode to baddassery called Wanted from the mind of Scottish graphic novelist and noted potty mouth Mark Millar.

And while I know that all of you would rather talk about the cutesy, animated bliss that flows from the mind of Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, I feel that it is only fair that we give Mark Millar and his eccentricities proper coverage. And when I say “eccentricities”, I am referring to the rad and unabashed brilliance of the “Wanted” graphic novel, upon which Russian director Timur Bekmambetov’s film is loosely based. In fact, it is that “loosely” based part that had fans a little upset following the first round of advance screenings last week. Fans were not happy with the departure from the source material, in which everyone is a super-villian and rape and cold blooded murder are commonplace. In an effort to calm some of the woes of the fans, Millar did a little Q&A with our friends over at First Showing, revealing that he is pretty fuckin’ stoked for the film and that Bekmambetov’s vision is right on the money:

Fucking Hell. I loved it. I could not love it more. As the writer of the original material, it’s weird passing your wee baby over to someone else, but this was like putting someone up for adoption and seeing him come back as Einstein. It’s the best comic adaptation I think I’ve ever seen and hopefully heralds a whole new type of superhero material. Suddenly, the old characters seem pretty old. Timur really raised the bar here. Batman better be really, really good to top this.

And not only is he calling out Batman, which doesn’t hit theaters until July 18, he is also slinging some words in the way of Wanted’s direct box office challenger, the aforementioned cutesy robot. Millar posted word yesterday on his own website’s message board that not only are plans for a Wanted sequel in the works, but it all depends on how many shots they are able to curve around that pesky WALL-E:

PS: Wanted 2 already being planned and they’ve asked me how I can develop some of the other stuff from the book into the sequel. We’ll see what box office is like at the weekend, but everyone knows this is going to make a LOT of dough. Wall-E permitting. Fucking bastard of a wee robot.

According to early word from both coasts, including some of the things that I’ve heard from colleagues and emails that I’ve received from some of you who have seen it, Wanted is delivering the level of badass action that we’ve been predicting all along. And for anyone who has read Millar’s graphic novel, you know that the potential is certainly there.

As for my own opinion, one that I know you all hold in very high regard, I will be formulating it on Thursday when FSR hosts our special advance screening in Columbus. In the area? Join us, damn it — just go here to find out how.

Has anyone out there seen Wanted yet and want to share their feelings with the class?