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ICM has signed Platinum Studios, with the mission to help the entertainment company create film projects from its vast library of 5600 comic book characters. Platinum Studios was started by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, who brokered the original deal for Men in Black when he ran Malibu Comics. After years of trying the movie version of the Platinum Comics title Cowboys & Aliens has become a tent pole being made in partnership between DreamWorks, Universal and Imagine, with Jon Favreau directing Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Paul Dano. As for other Platinum fare already set up for production: Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night has wrapped with Brandon Routh, Sam Huntington and Taye Diggs at Hyde Park and Omnilab Media; Len Wiseman is attached to direct Atlantis Rising at Dreamworks, Meet the Haunteds has director Steve Carr attached, Unique is being developed by Walt Disney Pictures and The Witchblade is at Top Cow Productions and Arclight Films. CAA and manager Glen Rigberg rep Platinum for TV.
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This is such great news. Scott is a decent, forward-thinking guy who has built this empire from the bottom up. Here’s hoping that all of his properties will see the light of day.
You’re kidding, right?
Oh Scott.
You never give up…..
Platinum Studios is a joke. They pretend to be a publisher but have barely published one graphic novel– which they gave away for free to comic stores to artificially boost their “sales” so they could make an announcement saying that they had the highest selling graphic novel of that sales period.
Please.
V
It takes more than just a Library of characters. THere needs to be a consistent universe, and characters and situations that are likable and relate to the readership/audience.
Platinum is full of PC / Diversity stuff that appeals to movie execs and so on, but have not caught on with readers. I certainly don’t see anything to appeal to 9-12 year old boys. I can’t even name one of their characters. While Malibu, Valiant, and Dark Horse comics characters certainly are memorable.
[Witchblade/Top Cow is a partner, not part of Platinum as I understand it. I just don't see the pulp energy present in other lower-echelon companies. Or much of a shared universe. ]
So whiskey, are you saying diversity and ‘pc’ (as in having the occasional non-white male hero) is an inherent flaw in publishing? are you saying that no one will ever care about a black, latino, asian comic book hero? Why are you such a hardcore racist even on something a simple as comic books?
jeez whiskey, I don’t think there’s anyone watching the airbender cartoons, or pokeman, or half of a dozen other anime titles. You’re right: what makes a comic book suck is when they included non-whites.
Tea, you’re an idiot. He’s saying the pc nature of these comics are part of why their appeal to studio execs, as opposed to having dynamic, memorable characters and worlds. It’s part of the argument for why a property can get heat in hollywood without ever having been popular in its original market. It’d be fine if the comics met those criteria for quality AND included non-white male heroes. But when it comes down to it, PC/diversity content is NOT why the target demo reads comics.
I’ve worked with Platinum throughout the years. Great group of people. Really happy that Cowboys is finally getting made!!
Good luck sorting out the slplit representation for t.v. and film.
Ohhhh. Yeah, I have to echo most of what’s said above. There’s a reason they have the reputation they do in the comics industry.
What value does reputation have in this business when results are generally good?
Seriously? Are you joking? It’s the results that make the reputation. Do the math.
V
Poor Sony. They really blew the Cowboys and Aliens franchise. They had it in development for several years with Escape Artists, rewrite after rewrite after rewrite only to lose it to Dreamworks and Brian Grazer. I wonder how they lost it? Regardless,that must hurt after spending all that money and watching a tent poll go elsewhere.
I’d like to see this “list” of 5600 characters…Platinum has always been a dubious player in the comics industry…
They’re not a real force in the publishing business at all — they simply use the comics medium to cheaply generate IP.
You have to make the distinction here between “pre-sold” IP like the Marvel and DC characters, which have generations of loyal fans, and the more utilitarian IP needs of companies like Boom, Platinum and Radical, who only care about getting visualized versions out of ideas they believe can work in other media.
Nobody is saying Cowboys and Aliens was a brilliant or important comic book, but the concept is what attracted all these players to this giant movie. Platinum has a library of concepts that could be marketed a lot better.
The problem that people fail to realize is that “IP’s” (a word I detest) do not become more valuable through marketing. An Intellectual Property is worthless in its own right. Marvel has 60 years of stories created by the world’s greatest visual storytellers. This is not 60 years of smart marketing. This is 60 years of creation, love and expression.
V
Yeah, who would want to work with the guys who have a $100M+ movie coming out? Certainly not some director who has turned “obscure characters” into billion dollar franchises. Oh..oh…wait a minute…
So you’re saying that Spielberg, Howard, Grazer, Favreau, Ford, Craig and Rockwell are not “in the know”? Clearly Pleaseeee is someone higher than all of these people combined. Uwe Boll? Is that you?
I had some early dealings with their physical production team in Santa Monica regarding some work in NM. If the overall team is as inept and clueless as those folks, that production is in for a heap of trouble.
I personally like Scott Rosenberg, who is an amiable guy, although the company has earned a tarnished reputation.
It is astonishing how they’ve managed to churn out consistently bad product, though. Aside from the above mentioned books, there are possibly 7 (and I’m being charitable) actual titles that COULD make a movie. But nothing I’m thinking of that would be a GOOD movie.
The smartest thing they could do now is to outreach to screenwriters of proven GOOD comic books movies (Alfred Gough & Miles Millar, David Hayter, Michael France, Michael Doughery and Dan Harris, Peter Briggs, Zak Penn et al) and give them creator carte blanchewith benefits to create a stable of not just sellable “brands” (like BOOM! cynically do), but actual GOOD comic books that people want to read, and then want to see as movies.
It ain’t brain surgery.
…um…bitter?
All you comic nerds: whether or not you got ripped off or underpaid by Platinum will not change the fact that this will be a big hit and many sequels will follow. That equal success. Don’t be bitter that you made a bad deal or couldn’t get noticed. That has no bearing here.
Anybody notice that almost every time there’s a comic book-related post here, a bunch of people pop up to call the people behind it a bunch of snakes, liars and cheats? Is the comic industry that corrupt or are comic creators just that jaded.
Don’t know these guys at all and I don’t really care that they’ve signed with ICM (is it really news that some rinky dink comic company signs with ICM?), but they seem to be getting a few things done. If they really are a bunch of snakes, it seems to be working for them.
I can’t believe they get away with saying they have a library of 5000 characters! They don’t even have any books out and haven’t since 2008! And back then the best product they put out was Hero By Night and they ended up burning the creator, D.J. Coffman pretty bad and then not allowing him to continue his creation. It was really the only book out there by them that was creating REAL feedback for them and making myself and others thinkg “Hmm, maybe Platinum isn’t so phony afterall?” – they do have a pretty bad reputation in the comic book industry. Mention them at a convention and people groan and roll their eyes a lot. But even with all of that said, I’m still a fan of Hero By Night and I’ve been hoping for it to come back… if ICM was smart, they’d look it up and bring it back to its glory. That book and it’s universe was pretty awesome, I don’t think Platinum would disagree either.
Good. Maybe they can bring back Hero By Night now. That book and universe was awesome. I was sorry to see it end because of all the trouble. And to whoever mentioned it, yeah, the comic industry is full of BOTH a bunch of snakey publishers and jaded creators. It’s a marriage made in hell. But us fans just want to see what we want! We’re the ones with the $, we vote with our wallets!
Hey, plant– Platinum Studios has no fans because they publish no books.
V
You’re wrong! in 2007-2008 they had books out in the market. I only bought Hero By Night though because the other stuff they had out was garbage.
I don’t think people are bitter as much as they feel Platinum is a front to strictly generate IP to put in front of development peoples eyes. You may say that is smart and that’s what all these companies are doing. Wrong. A lot of these other publishers want to make quality books knowing they would then make good IP. But if that’s not the case they can look at themselves in the mirror. Platinum seems to throw shit against the wall hoping if they throw enough shit some will stick. I shouldn’t refer to them as a publisher, more like collectors of bulk IP. Smart, because they need just one big hit to get your name out there. But they aren’t building a good brand nor do they get the respect of people who actually read comics. I never met Scott but he sounds like a typical businessman with no artistic integrity. He sounds like he is all about money and not about telling good stories. If you have original characters and tell smart innovative stories, some D girl will take notice. Perfect example is WANTED. It was a no brainer it was something special. It was an excellent graphic novel, much better than the actual film. Same with The Loser. Basically these guys are selling penny stocks hoping to score big. Not a crime.
The only movies that Platinum has gotten made (“Men In Black” and “Cowboys and Aliens”) have gotten produced because of Dreamworks. Left to their own devices, Platinum’s internal development is a joke: (“Dead of Night” anyone? Is that even getting a release?)
Scott Rosenberg is good at exactly one thing: it’s not making good comics, it’s not making good movies or T.V. shows, it’s not having a great library of titles. He’s good at getting press releases picked up by the trades.
I have dellt with Platinum Studios in the past. Scott is a decent guy, but has very bad taste. They have a huge library filled with very obscure foreign characters that mean very little. They are not fully developed. Mostly crudely drawn pictures with a half sentence about them. This operation is just a front to jam IP into the Hollywood machine and see what takes. No one takes them too seriously because they have yet to have a successful graphic novel in the past decade. You wont see people at SDCC looking for the Platinum booth. Stay far away from these guys. It’s a waste of time.
The problem with Platinum Studios was mainly Rich Marincic. Lazy, useless and generally pretty meat-headed, he ran their development department into the ground while taking their money and talking shit about them and Scott constantly. Those of you who mentioned DEAD OF NIGHT having a shitty development process – you can thank Rich. Those of you who mention that they have ready-made product (good or bad, it seems everyone agrees that the product is sellable) – you can thank Rich for failing to actually set anything up. If you need further proof, he left Platinum and went over to American Original, Jeff Katz’s company. After a massive launch announcement in all the trades and at Comic-Con, the company has failed to do much of anything and has devolved into a website. Maybe now that he’s gone and ICM picked them up, shit will get done.