Chrononauts (comics)

Chrononauts is a British comic book series created by Mark Millar and Sean Murphy, published by Image Comics, and set in the Millarworld. Described as "Apollo 13 meets The Time Machine", the title was announced near the end of 2014, with the first volume running for four issues from March to June 2015. Two sequels followed: the four-issue Chrononauts: Futureshock (2019; illustrated by Eric Canete) and the five-issue Big Game (2023; illustrated by Pepe Larraz), with a further series to be published by Dark Horse Comics. A one-shot, Chrononauts: Prom Night, written by Shaun Brill and illustrated by Conor Hughes, was also published in 2017.

A Chrononauts feature film has been in development since 2015, and development hell since 2017.

Chrononauts
Corbin Quinn and Danny Reilly are two buddies and scientific geniuses who love to have fun. When their research leads them to the invention of time-travel, will they use their knowledge for the good of all mankind? Or use the space-time continuum for their own ends? This is the story of man's first, televised steps through the time-stream and how everything goes wrong in the process.

Prom Night
In 2017, Chrononauts: Prom Night, written by Shaun Brill and illustrated by Conor Hughes, was published as part of the Millarworld New Talent Annual 2017, an anthology annual consisting of one-shot specials containing winning entries from the online contest for up-and-coming creators held by Millar in 2016. Set after the events of Chrononauts, the story sees Danny Corbin using time travel to attempt to improve the quality of his prom night.

Futureshock
As time-traveling physicists Corbin Quinn and Danny Reilly attempt to conquer the future with their newest time machine—The Timehawk. A little older but none the wiser, the best friends return for their biggest mission yet, as their old Professor and classmate Bronwyn present them with an explosive new mission to prevent the end of all human civilisation—the boys returning to the past to protect the utopian future from collapse.

Big Game
Recruited by billionaire Dr. Edison Crane and "Bobbie Griffin", Corbin Quinn and Danny Reilly must face off against the Secret Lord of Earth and leader of the Fraternity of Super-Criminals Wesley Gibson, and save all the world's superhumans he wiped out, as his father had once done in 1986, in addition to facing off against the prehistoric Royal Empire, their fleet brought to the present by Mindy McCready.

Adaptation
In March 2015, Universal Pictures optioned Chrononauts for a feature film adaptation, to be produced by Chris Morgan under his Chris Morgan Productions banner, with Mark Millar and Sean Murphy executive producing, with one actor attached to star by May, and Philip Gawthorne joining as screenwriter by April 2017. That same month, Millar revealed that prior to becoming a comic, Chrononauts had been intended as a short film, before he was asked by a "pal at Universal" (who ultimately left the company) to develop it into a comic that could then be adapted into a film starring Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth, but that the duo were not guaranteed to be cast as the titular characters, since no casting would take place "until a script is done and dusted". In August 2017, Netflix acquired the Millarworld imprint of creator-owned titles, with the Chrononauts feature film consequently entering development hell.