Wow! Radical! And Blatant! And it’s another one of those Hollywood Studio development deals. Some very familiar names and faces involved however.
Fresh out of a first look deal with Dark Horse Comics, producer and renowned rock photographer Barry Levine has joined forces with Intandem Films who are raising a $100m film fund and representing a slate of comic book adaptations from Radical Publishing.
Levine’s Los Angeles-based film production entity Blatant Pictures will produce the genre-led product with wide ancillary market potential from the comic books, mass-market book publishing, toys, television, to films and videogames.
Levine’s recent high-end comic book to film adaptations which he shepherded at Dark Horse include Rex Mundi written by Jim Uhls (Fight Club) as a vehicle for Johnny Depp/Infinitum-Nihil to produce and potentially star, currently being fast-tracked by Warner Brothers/IEG and Universal Pictures repped R.I.P.D. to be directed by Dave Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) and produced by Sony-based Neil Moritz (I Am Legend, xXx) and Barry Levine’s mentor Mike Richardson (The Mask, Hellboy).
Already being developed through Radical Publishing is a large slate of projects. Two of the graphic novel properties have recently been picked up by Rogue; Blood on The Tracks and Hercules and a deal is also in place for a graphic novel trilogy created by Vin Diesel through his interactive label Tigon studios.
The first two projects to be developed through the Intandem, Blatant/Radical Partnership are the fantasy action approx. $35m Legends, written and illustrated by Nick Percival (2000AD) to be helmed by Patrick Tatopoulous and his Tatopoulous studios (The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Underworld, Independence Day, Stargate) and $25m Medieval, Blatant/Radical’s Wild Bunch of the 11th Century, based on the script by Peter Fedorenko and the graphic novel by Ian Edginton (Spiderman, Terminator) starring Til Schwieger (Laura Croft Tomb Raider, Barfuss) artwork by world renowned John Bolton (Batman, XMen).
LA manager David Schiff is packaging consultant on the projects .
Radical Publishing will also be introducing several comic-book licences to the marketplace. The first of which will be Intandem’s GallowWalker starring Wesley Snipes which will debut with Radical Publishing’s full slate of comic-book properties at San Diego Comic Con during July 2007.
Intandem’s $100m raise is steaming ahead, enforced by the recently struck relationship with SOCOM8 s.a (international commodities trading and real estate development company) who are one of the key investors in Blatant/Radical.
David Elliott (previously publisher of Tundra, Penthouse, Atomeka and Thrill-House and whose creative credits include Heavy Metal, Marvel, DC and Image) is Co-publisher and Editor in chief of Blatant/Radical.
Anything involving Dave Elliott will be bound to fail.
I don’t see this trend dying down anytime soon, what with the money Spider-man has made for Sony. Heck even completely unknown properties (to the general public) like Hellboy and Blade can make money when done correctly.
Don’t make the same mistake I did.
Steve you beat me to it. Dave Elliot’s a great guy but as a publisher he seems to be the kiss of death for anything he works on. Maybe Marvel should give him a job. Just kidding. I think..
Anything with former failed lame ass rock photographer BARRY LEVINE will DEFINITELTY FAIL. Barry is a loser. Always has been. Had it all as a photographer in the 70’s, then got hooked on coke and lost everything including his teeth. The guy resurfaced in Hollywood over a decade later in 1990 and riding the coat tails of a few guys in the Music Supervision game. He never did anything on his own. The guy hasn’t had an original thought in his head since Carter was President.