Sunday, March 23, 2008

Dark Horse and Universal

Last week, Dark Horse Comics and Universal Studios signed an exclusive 3 year production and distribution deal, which should hopefully help get a number of great new titles into development faster and better than before. Just finishing work together on Hellboy II: The Golden Army it looks like this deal will set the stakes for a slew of potential future Dark Horse films. Of course, Dark Horse is probably best know for some of their licensed titles that would most likely not be included in this partnership like Star Wars, Conan, Buffy, and Indiana Jones, but I think this still bodes well for everyone.

Under the agreement Universal will get exclusive creative access for film development of all of Dark Horse's stable of characters. Which is cool especially for those of us who might be getting a bit burnt out on the strict diet of superhero films. In the recent past Dark Horse has brought such diverse properties to the screen as 300, Sin City, 30 Days of Night, and AVP2. I know I'm looking forward to what they can come up with under this deal. So far the only project they have announced in development is R.I.P.D. which seems to be about a group of undead cops working for the Rest In Peace Department of heaven, tracking down escaped demons, and the like. Check out this wiki list of Dark Horse titles though. That's a good starting place to speculate what we might see emerge from this deal. Some that stick out to me as obvious choices, BPRD, Concrete, Give Me Liberty, Ghost, Groo, Rex Mundi, Grendel, Marshall Law, The Goon, and Usagi Yojimbo.

Hopefully we'll get some big news on upcoming projects soon. This should be really fun :)
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