Tag Archives: dark horse entertainment

Charlie Day is set to star in Kill Me for XYZ Films and Dark Horse

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Writer, director, actor Charlie Day has been set to star in the dark comedy Kill Me, directed and written by Peter Warren. The film is produced by XYZ Films, Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg for Dark Horse Entertainment, Charlie Day and Peter Warren, and is executive produced by Paul Schwake and Kasey Adler for Dark Horse. The film is financed by XYZ Films, who will also be handling worldwide sales.

In the film Jimmy (Charlie Day) wakes up in a bathtub after having tried to kill himself. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like to his friends and family. Jimmy is pretty sure he didn’t do it…Maybe. Together with Margot, the 911 operator who took his call, Jimmy sets out on a mission to solve a vitally important whodunit: did someone try to kill him, or are they chasing the specter of depression? Kill Me is described as “a gripping, hilarious, and deeply moving murder mystery.”

The film will begin shooting next spring.

Bang! with Idris Elba and Mind MGMT get adaptations as Dark Horse and Netflix extend their partnership

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Netflix and Dark Horse Entertainment have extended their first look deal. Under this multi-year deal, Dark Horse will continue to give Netflix a first look at its IP for both film and TV. 

Netflix and Dark Horse recently collaborated on the third season of The Umbrella Academy, which in its first four weeks reached the Netflix Global Top 10 in TV in 91 countries with 283.55M hours viewed (as of July 17, 2022) 

New projects in active development under the Dark Horse Entertainment banner include:

  • Bang! starring Idris Elba and directed by David Leitch 
    • Based on the comic series by Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres, the feature film adaptation of this stylish spy thriller will be written by Kindt and Zak Olkewicz
    • Producers: Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg for Dark Horse, David Leitch and Kelly McCormick for 87 North, and Idris Elba
    • When a terrorist cult sets out to start the apocalypse with a series of novels meant to brainwash their readers, the world’s most celebrated spy is sent to track down and kill the author responsible.
  • Mind MGMT with Curtis Gwinn set to Executive Produce this series adaptation of the comic book series by Matt Kindt
    • A young woman stumbles onto the top-secret Mind Management program. Her ensuing journey involves weaponized psychics, hypnotic advertising, talking dolphins, and seemingly immortal pursuers, as she attempts to find the man who was MIND MGMT’s greatest success – and its most devastating failure. But in a world where people can rewrite reality itself, can she trust anything she sees?
    • Executive Producers: Curtis Gwinn, and Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg for Dark Horse
  • Next up for Dark Horse is the 8 episode series Grendel, based on the classic comic by Matt Wagner. Andrew Dabb created the series, which is in post-production.

Previous Dark Horse Entertainment releases include the Netflix film Polar, starring Mads Mikkelsen, the Netflix animated series Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, returning later this year with Season 2, and the animated film Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness, which recently spent four weeks on the Netflix TV (English) Top 10. 

Dark Horse Entertainment

Embracer Buys Dark Horse After Mega Deal to Buy Asmodee

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Embracer Group is on a buying spree to end the year. Just lack week, the video game behemoth announced the intended acquisition of Asmodee, the board game publisher, for €2.75 billion (about $3.1 billion in US dollars). Now, the conglomerate is purchasing Dark Horse Media, making it the tenth operative group of the Embracer group. Dark Horse founder and CEO Mike Richardson will continue to lead the company with existing management.

According to the announcement, Dark Horse “owns or controls” more than 300 intellectual properties. It strengthens Embracer Group’s content development in comic publishing and film and tv production. Asmodee in the recent year has expanded its non-game publishing (books, art books) and also recently announced moves to bring its properties to film and television.

In the acquisition, Embracer Group gains Dark Horse Comics, Dark Horse Entertainment (film and television), and Things from Another World (retail with three locations and e-commerce). In the Asmodee acquisition, it was revealed that Asmodee owned two stores including the popular Miniature Market which it bought in 2021. The purchase of Asmodee and Dark Horse quickly expands Embracer’s retail operations with both physical and e-commerce options as well as its reach into television and film. The firm is clearly looking at how to expand its existing properties beyond their initial silos of release.

In the announcement, Embracer specifically mentioned the “untapped potential in creating games based on Dark Horse IP”. Embracer Group is the parent company of 86 video game development studios representing over 250 IPs in over 40 countries. Studios include THQ Nordic, Gearbox Entertainment, and others with properties such as Saints Row, Dead Island, Darksiders, Timesplitters, World War Z, and Borderlands.

Darksiders and Dead Island have seen comics based on them released by Dark Horse while Borderlands has had comic tie-ins published by IDW Publishing.

Between these two purchases, Embracer quickly becomes an IP powerhouse with the abilitiy to release concepts across video games, tabletop games, comics, movies, and television.

The amount of the purchase has not been revealed “due to commercial reasons” but Embracer will purchase 80 percent of the shares of Dark Horse from a seller based in Hong Kong and the remaining 20 percent of the shares from CEO Mike Richardson and COO Neil Hankerson. The transaction is expected to be completed in early 2022.

Grendel is Coming to Television from Netflix

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Grendel Omnibus Vol 1

An unexpected comic property is heading to Netflix. Matt Wagner’s award-winning Grendel is heading to the small screen as Netflix has ordered 8 episodes of the series. The show will star Abubakr Ali who will be the first Arab Muslim male actor to lead a comic adaptation. The series will be written and executive produced by Andrew Dabb and is part of Netflix’s first look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment whose Dark Horse comics published the comic series.

Grendel was originally published by Comico but eventually moved to Dark Horse. First appearing in October 1982 in the Comico Primer anthology, the character got his own series in 1983 moving publishers due to financial trouble.

The story is about Hunter Rose, an assassin and successful author who seems to avenge the death of a lost love going to war against New York’s criminal underworld.

Also cast in the series are:

  • Jaime Ray Newman as Jocasta Rose
  • Julian Black Antelope as Argent
  • Madeline Zima as Liz Sparks
  • Kevin Corrigan as Barry Palumbo
  • Emma Ho as Stacy Palumbo
  • Erik Palladino as Teddy Ciccone
  • Brittany Allen as Annabelle Wright
  • Andy Mientus as Larry Stohler

Lady Killer is Coming to the Screen Adapted by Diablo Cody and Starring Blake Lively

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Academy Award Winner Diablo Cody will adapt the screenplay for a film based on the Dark Horse Comic Lady Killer. Lady Killer was written by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich and illustrated by Jones. Blake Lively will star in the film from Netflix.

Lady Killer takes place in the 1950s focusing on Josie Schuller, the perfect housewife. Josie also secretly works as a hired killer for the mafia who finds out about her double life and decides to have her killed.

The comic series debuted in 2015 running for two volumes, each five issues, and wrapping up in 2016.

Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg of Dark Horse Entertainment and Blake Lively and Kate Vorhoff for B for Effort will produce the film.

Purchase: comiXology: Lady Killer, Lady Killer 2 – Amazon: Lady Killer, Lady Killer 2 – Kindle: Lady Killer, Lady Killer 2

Lady Killer

Dark Horse and Netflix Sign a First Look Deal

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It was announced today that Netflix has closed a first look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment. Under the new deal, Dark Horse Entertainment will give Netflix a first look at its IP for both film and TV and has started exploring future projects. Dark Horse Entertainment’s Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg and Paul Schwake signed on to produce.

Netflix and Dark Horse have previously collaborated on the action-comedy series The Umbrella Academy based on the comic series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, which was recently renewed for a second season, as well as Jonas Åkerlund’s feature film Polar based on the comic series by Victor Santos.

Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse’s Resident Alien is picked up by SyFy

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Resident Alien

SyFy has announced the series pickup of Resident Alien, a comedic drama based on the Dark Horse comics series by co-creators Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. From Universal Content Productions (UCP), in association with Amblin TV and Dark Horse Entertainment, the series was adapted to television by executive producer Chris Sheridan.

Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg of Dark Horse Entertainment, and Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank of Amblin TV will also executive produce. David Dobkin executive produced and directed the pilot.

Resident Alien is a twisted and comedic fish-out-of-water story that follows a crash-landed alien named Harry (Alan Tudyk) who, after taking on the identity of a small-town Colorado doctor, slowly begins to wrestle with the moral dilemma of his secret mission on Earth — ultimately asking the question, “Are human beings worth saving?”

Tudyk is joined by series regulars Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds, Alice Wetterlund, and Levi Fiehler. The series will begin production in Vancouver this summer.

Dark Horse Entertainment Announces Global Partnership with Vanguard Visionary Associates

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Dark Horse Entertainment, L.L.C. and Vanguard Visionary Associates have announced a new partnership to grow the Dark Horse brand internationally in both its media and pop culture businesses.

The new venture will allow Dark Horse to fully finance development of properties from Dark Horse’s extensive content library as well as cultivate original ideas and acquire material for film and television, then co-finance the production of those projects. The deal will also focus on bringing the company’s award-winning publications and product lines to new international markets, particularly China.

In the release, Dark Horse CEO and founder Mike Richardson said the deal would allow the publisher to accelerate their growth and reach worldwide as well as presents new opportunities for employees and talent working with them.

Cheung will join the Dark Horse Entertainment board while Richardson will continue as the company’s CEO overseeing its operations.

Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo is Being Developed into an Animated Series

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Gaumont has optioned the iconic, multi-generational comic book series Usagi Yojimbo from the series creator, writer, and illustrator Stan Sakai, to be developed into an animated TV series. First published in 1984, the multiple award-winning Usagi Yojimbo is to be co-produced by Gaumont, Sakai, James Wan’s Atomic Monster, and Dark Horse Entertainment’s Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg who will serve as executive producers, with Chris Tongue as co-executive producer. The announcement was made today by Gaumont’s President of Animation, Nicolas Atlan.

This will be the character’s first ever tv series, though not the first time the character has appeared on an animated series. The character has appeared appeared in all three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series. Usagi debuted in TMNT in 1987 and he most recently appeared in Nickelodeon’s three-episode arc in the summer of 2017.

Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo takes place amidst a rich fantasy setting in 17th century Japan and features a diverse world of anthropomorphic characters. Miyamoto Usagi, otherwise known as Usagi Yojimbo, is a ronin warrior with the heart of a hero. A skilled swordsrabbit, and one-time bodyguard for a Japanese War Lord, he’s now masterless, and explores his world of immense castles and humble villages, encountering dinosaurs, Yokai (ghosts/monsters), cats, bats, bounty hunters, giant snakes, and even aliens, facing exciting adventures at every turn, always ready to help.

Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s Umbrella Academy Comes to Netflix

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Netflix will bring the ten-episode series The Umbrella AcademyGerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s Umbrella Academy Comes to Netflix to members worldwide in 2018.

Based on the popular, Eisner award-winning comics and graphic novels created and written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy is a live action series that follows the estranged members of a dysfunctional family of superheroes (The Umbrella Academy) — The Monocle, Spaceboy, The Kraken, The Rumor, The Séance, Number Five, The Horror, and The White Violin — as they work together to solve their father’s mysterious death while coming apart at the seams due to their divergent personalities and abilities. Published by Dark Horse Comics, the comic series garnered much praise from fans and critics alike for its alternate and twisted take on the superhero genre.

The Umbrella Academy will be produced by Universal Cable Productions. Steve Blackman (Fargo, Altered Carbon) will serve as executive producer and showrunner, with additional executive producers Bluegrass Television and Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg from Dark Horse Entertainment. Gerard Way will serve as co-executive producer. The pilot script was adapted from the comic book series by Jeremy Slater (The Exorcist).

To celebrate this exciting news, Dark Horse is offering San Diego Comic-Con attendees the chance to meet Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá! On Friday, July 21 from 11:00 to 11:50 a.m., Dark Horse will welcome Gerard and Gabriel for a special wristband-only signing at Booth #2615 at the San Diego Convention Center. Wristbands will be distributed by a random drawing in the Dark Horse Comics Booth #2615 on both Thursday (July 20) and Friday (July 21) morning while supplies last.

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