After being viewed as the go-to indie comic publisher for a little more than three decades, Dark Horse Comics is officially selling out! The company has agreed to be sold to the Swedish video game conglomerate The Embracer Group with the deal expected to finalize in early 2022.
While this may sound like a bad thing, it looks to be a much better situation than you might think when it comes to one company being bought by another. For starters, Dark Horse founder and current CEO Mike Richardson is going to stay on and continue to chart the course of the company’s future under The Embracer Group’s ownership.
Richardson seems to feel incredibly optimistic about this new deal, saying in a statement:
The synergies that exist with the Embracer network of companies promise exciting new opportunities not only for Dark Horse, but also for the creators and companies we work with. I’ve had a number of compelling conversations with Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors and I’m very impressed with him and what he and his team have built. I have to say, the future for our company has never looked brighter.
Founded nearly four decades ago in 1986, Dark Horse Comics has roughly 181 employees with offices in Milwaukie, Oregon, and Los Angeles. Outside of their comic publishing enterprise, Dark Horse also has several other divisions including Dark Horse Direct (who develop and produce non-comic consumer products), Dark Horse Entertainment (who handle the film and television projects), and Things From Another World (who handle merchandising and retail sales).
The publisher’s new owner, The Embracer Group, has over 9,000 employees globally, The company was formerly known as THQ Nordic and already has a massive library of popular gaming IP including Saints Row, Dead Island, Darksiders, Goat Simulator, Timesplitters, Red Faction, and Destroy All Humans.
While The Embracer Group could be looking to develop and publish comic books based around their various gaming properties, it seems much more likely that they are looking to get their hands on the company’s massive back catalog of original IPs with big plans for film and television development. With Marvel owned by Disney and DC Comics owned by Warner Brothers, Dark Horse is arguably the next big fish that studios are gunning for when it comes to developing live-action adaptations of comic book properties.
Dark Horse currently has a first-look deal in place with streaming giant Netflix, which produces the fan-favorite television adaptation of The Umbrella Academy. In addition to a third season in the works for 2022, the comic book company also currently has several projects in various stages of development at Warner Bros., Sony, Amazon, Universal, AMC, and Paramount.
While you may not recognize some of them as comic book adaptations right away, Dark Horse Comics has been a mainstay at the box office for quite some time now. Previous live-action film adaptations include The Mask (1994), Timecop (1994), Tank Girl (1995), Barb Wire (1996), Virus (1999), Mystery Men (1999), R.I.P.D. (2013), and multiple films for franchises like Sin City (2003, 2014), 300 (2007, 2014), Alien Vs. Predator (2004, 2007), and Hellboy (2004, 2008, 2019).
With around 300 unique IPs in their library, acquiring Dark Horse certainly seems like a worthwhile investment for any company looking to better position themselves in the global entertainment market.
What do you think of this merger? Do you think Dark Horse has a lot to gain from the support of The Embracer Group, or more to lose? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and be sure to stick around Geek Anything for more Dark Horse updates!
