Legendary Entertainment has bought movie and television rights to Jeff Lemire’s “Black Hammer” comic series universe.
The company, a subsidiary of the China-based Wanda Group, made the announcement Tuesday. Lemire will serve as an executive producer with Dean Ormston, the co-creator and illustrator of the comic series. The “Black Hammer” comics were first published by Dark Horse Comics in 2015.
Black Hammer is a superhero who joined with other superheroes — including Golden Gail, Barbalien, and Colonel Weird — to save Spiral City but in process became trapped in a timeless farm town with little chance of escape. It has received two Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, including best new series in 2017.
Lemire has also published graphic novels “Essex County” and “Sweet Tooth,” and is in development for film and television projects that include “Descender” and “A.D. After Death” at Sony Pictures; “Underwater Welder” with Ryan Gosling attached to direct; “Essex County” at the CBC; and “Gideon Falls” at Hivemind. Ormston has worked on DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse titles including “Lucifer,” “Sand Man,” “Judge Dredd,” “Spider-Man,” and “Superman.”
Legendary’s upcoming titles include “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the live-action “Detective Pikachu” — which will both be released in 2019 — and “Godzilla vs. Kong,” which is in pre-production for a May 2020 release. Recent Legendary titles include “Skyscraper,” “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” “Kong: Skull Island,” and “The Great Wall.”
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The deal was brokered by Angela Cheng Caplan of Cheng Caplan Company, Allison Binder of Stone Genow Smelkinson Binder & Christopher LLP, and Charlie Olsen of InkWell Management on behalf of Lemire and Ormston.
