Heavy Metal magazine sold, to relaunch as bigger brandhttp://ift.tt/Lhi9Gc
Heavy Metal Magazine has been sold for several million dollars to music industry vet David Boxembaum and producer Jeff Krelitz, Variety reports. The duo will relaunch the magazine as a digital quarterly and revive the brand as an umbrella for film,TV and music projects.
Heavy Metal magazine started in the trippy seventies as a US offshoot of the famed French comics magazine Fluide Glacial—it featured mind bending, hazy SF comics by Moebius, Bilal and more and led to the trippy, mind bending animated anthology film. Flush with Turtles money, fan Kevin Eastman brought it in the 90s, and tried to revive a new Heavy Metal movie over the past decade or so, but the trppiy seventies had given way to the aggro crank fueled 21st century, and the project has languished.
Krelitz (l.) and Boxenbaum (r.) aim to change that. Eastman will remain a minority investor in and publisher of the magazine, but the new duo is moving forward with many projects:
Krelitz is overseeing Heavy Metal’s film, TV, IP and global publishing initiatives in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and already has brought in his TV shows “Red Brick Road,” a “Game of Thrones”-style take on “The Wizard of Oz,” that’s set up at Warner Horizon with Roy Lee, Adrian Askarieh and Mark Wolper; the Peter Pan-inspired “Peter Panzerfaust,” an adaptation of the Image comic that BBC Worldwide is developing with Elijah Wood; and a version of another Image book, “Chew,” as a direct-to-video animated film and live action series.
The new owners hope to review the Heavy Metal brand—in ALL its uses—and set it up as a new creative lab.
Krelitz and Boxenbaum said they want to continue to give writers, especially those working in the comicbook biz, voices through the publication, that will be revamped as both a print and online quarterly. But stories they tell could also be developed into projects for other entertainment platforms the way Krelitz has done through his Quality Transmedia banner. Krelitz also founded Contraband Films, which set up TV shows and films at Universal and New Line and published graphic novels. His Double Barrel Motion Labs also has helped studios and publishers re-purpose marketing materials for the mobile biz.
Developing…
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