Now, this may or may not turn out to be manga-related at all (in fact, I’m leaning towards not), but Dark Horse publishes manga (not to mention being local to me), so damnit, I’m going to report it.
Dark Horse has, according to AICN, established a contract with Universal to make seven films based on Dark Horse properties, starting with R.I.P.D. over the next three years. (Congrats, guys!)
I’m pretty sure that this deal doesn’t extend to Dark Horse’s licensed manga, whose movie rights would have to be acquired through their Japanese owners (unless DH’s contracts include those rights, which would be unusual, I should think). But I wonder: could it extend to Dark Horse’s upcoming and untitled original work from CLAMP?
Thinking about it, even that’s a stretch. I don’t know how the rights for the series are working but I bet CLAMP owns them in the end; I do know that the “mangettes” will be released simultaneously in Japan and the US, and that it will be serialized in a mangabon in Japan (but we don’t yet know which one). On the other hand, maybe they did negotiate some rights to help work a movie deal– it’s hard to imagine CLAMP wouldn’t be interested in seeing one of their series get turned into a mainstream Hollywood flick, assuming that they got a deal they liked.
That is all, of course, pure speculation on my part: the only thing we know for sure is that Universal is going to make seven films based on Dark Horse properties*, and that if Dark Horse manages to self-finance any films, they will have access to Universal’s resources. (Hey, that means they COULD be in a place to work up films based on licensed properties, if they can get the support of Japanese companies…)
…Right, I’ll stop fantasizing now. Sorry. ♥ I AM dropping an e-mail to their marketing coordinator to see if he can offer me any insight on the possibilities.
* At a further glance, I’m not entirely sure where AICN gets the number 7, since it’s not in the Variety article they cite, so make up your own minds on that.
