In the wake of The Umbrella Academy's hit first season, Netflix has signed a first-look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment.
While no specific projects were announced, this deal will give Netflix the first opportunity to make shows and films based on Dark Horse's considerable library of titles.
"We are very excited about this new arrangement with the talented people at Netflix," said Dark Horse President and founder Mike Richardson in an official statement. "We have strong creative relationships as well as a large content library to work with, and, as we have seen with our recent projects, Netflix is the perfect partner to bring our stories to fans around the world."
With approximately 45 million global views, The Umbrella Academy, which is based on a Dark Horse series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, is an unmitigated hit for the streaming giant and has already been renewed for a second season.
In addition to Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse and Netflix have also already collaborated on Polar, which stars Mads Mikkelsen and is based on Victor Santos' webcomic of the same name.
"Following the success of The Umbrella Academy, we’re excited to extend our relationship with Dark Horse Comics,” said Cindy Holland, Netflix's Vice President of Original Content. “The Netflix teams are already working in deep collaboration with Dark Horse to identify projects beyond the world of traditional superheroes -- branching into horror, fantasy and family entertainment -- that we think our members will love."
While it's not clear how this deal will affect Dark Horse's creator-owned properties like Mike Mignola's Hellboy or Frank Miller's Sin City, Dark Horse has turned a wide range of comics, including The Mask, Mystery Men, Dark Matter, Barb Wire, Duckman, Timecop and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot into films or TV series.
Previously, Dark Horse had a similar deal with NBCUniversal's Universal Cable Productions, which resulted in the development of The Umbrella Academy and the upcoming SyFy series Resident Alien.