Deals

Universal and comic book publishers Dark Horse have signed a three year production and distribution deal. The upcoming Hellboy II movie “had a lot to do with it” said Dark Horse founder and prexy Mike Richardson. "We've done a number of pictures with Universal over the years, and we have a lot of relationships with the people there. Since they get the particular genre, it makes sense to go with them." Universal will have creative access to all of Dark Horse’s characters and properties, while Dark Horse gets a distribution outlet for any self-financed movies and access to lot based producers.


Warner Brothers is in talks with New Line production prexy Toby Emmerich about running a smaller version of New Line. While WB integrates them, New Line would make 6-8 movies a year with smaller budgets, below $50 million (However, planned and proposed movies The Hobbit, Wedding Crashers 2, and Austin Powers 4 would have larger budgets), and the exec staff will be slimmed down from fifteen to as few as four.