Netflix and BOOM! Studios have signed a first-look deal that gives the streaming service the first opportunity to develop the comic book publisher's creative properties into television and film.
This deal includes the rights to adapt BOOM! franchises as live-action and animated series. BOOM!'s many properties -- including Lumberjanes, Something is Killing the Children, Once & Future and Mouse Guard -- are part of this deal. Additionally, BOOM! Studios CEO and Founder Ross Richie and President of Development Stephen Christy will serve as executive producers on all projects developed with Netflix.
"BOOM! characters are innately special, they're colorful, diverse and varied and their stories have the power to ignite something in all of us," Netflix's Vice President of Original Series Brian Wright said in a statement. "We can't wait to bring these stories from the page to the screen to fans in every corner of the world."
"We generate 20+ new original series a year and are thrilled to partner with a company that is as prolific as we are," Richie added. "BOOM!'s unique partnership model of controlling the media rights to our library benefits creators by positioning them to be packaged with high-end directors, screenwriters and producers. We're thrilled to continue our track record of translating our best-selling award-winning library with the best TV talent in the business but now with the undisputed leader of the new streaming era."
Previously, BOOM! had partnered with 20th Century Fox for a similar first-look deal. However, when Fox merged with Disney, several projects that had been in development fell through, including Wes Ball's Mouse Guard adaptation. Nevertheless, the deal remains in place through Jan. 2021, with the studio planning to release an adaptation of Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey's The Empty Man this summer.
BOOM! has already collaborated with Netflix on Shazam! director David F. Sandberg's The Unsound, which is based on the graphic novel by Cullen Bunn and Jack T. Cole. Additionally, BOOM! produced a comic-book tie in to the Netflix original series Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.