James R | On 07, Aug 2022

Netflix and Dark Horse have extended their partnership, giving Netflix ongoing first look opportunities to bring its IP to the screen.

With a growing number of rival streaming services, and third party titles reverting to their owners, Netflix is under increasing pressure to secure its own exclusive and original franchises – and The Umbrella Academy, based on the Dark Horse comic of the same name, has become a major part of that strategy. Netflix’s new multi-year deal will give the streamer a chance to build on that success across both films and TV series.

There are many projects in active development under the Dark Horse Entertainment banner. Leading the way is feature film Bang! starring Idris Elba (The Harder They Fall, Concrete Cowboy, Luther) and directed by David Leitch (Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2). Based on the comic series by Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres, the spy thriller will be written by Kindt (Ninjak vs the Valiant Universe) and Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train, Fear Street Part 2: 1978)

It sees Elba play the world’s most celebrated spy, who is sent track down the author responsible for a series of novels meant to brainwash their readers, after a terrorist cult sets out to start the apocalypse.

Also on the slate is Mind MGMT, with Curtis Gwinn (Stranger Things) set to executive produce a series based on the comic book series by Matt Kindt. It follows a young woman who stumbles onto a 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

The series is exec-produced by Curtis Gwinn, and Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg for Dark Horse.

Additional Dark Horse projects already in development with Netflix include Revenge Inc, a drama series focused on a secret, underground company that specialises in revenge, with Matthew Arnold as showrunner/executive producer, and Lady Killer, an action thriller film about a 1950s housewife leading a secret life as a highly-trained killer for hire, with Blake Lively starring and producing, based on the comic series by Joelle Jones and Jamie S Rich.

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. 

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