Platinum Studios, an entertainment company that controls the world’s largest independent library of comic book characters, has announced the acquisition of the next four graphic novels by acclaimed horror writer Wil Radcliffe. Platinum will develop all four graphic novels as live-action features.
The acquisition is part of a major expansion of Platinum’s thriller line on the heels of Platinum’s recent $200M deal with Gold Circle films and exclusive deal with independent comics publisher Top Cow Productions, Inc.
Platinum’s deal with Radcliffe came about following a blind submission from Radcliffe to Platinum. Platinum responded enthusiastically to Radcliffe’s imaginative concepts, evocative settings, and interesting character hooks.
“I liked Platinum’s approach to the business and had heard great things about them, so I thought, ‘What can it hurt?'” says Radcliffe, a graduate of Ball State. “Now I find myself with not one, but four projects with them. It’s a little intimidating, but exciting at the same time.”
Wil Radcliffe won First Place in the David Letterman Telecommunications Scholarship Competition for an original script and storyboards when he was still in college. Radcliffe’s first professional writing sale was the short story “Shadow Plays” to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine. He is also a contributor to Comics Buyer’s Guide and Cracked Magazine. Last year, Radcliffe published his first young adult fantasy novel, “Noggle Stones”.
“Will has an incredible gift for creepy, scary material,” said Platinum Studios chairman Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. “We loved the first graphic novel story he submitted and asked him if he had more–all of them were great. Platinum is always looking for writers with great ideas, and I personally love horror and thriller stories. We’re fortunate to be working with him.”
The four projects included in the deal are Bone Hill, a thriller about a psychiatrist trying to save young female patient whose psychoses may hold the key to ending an ancient, mystic evil, The Whisper King, about a man who must protect a group of kids from the monsters who abducted him as a child, Macabre, a teen supernatural horror story about a young man possessed by a vengeful spirit, and Play Dead, in which a family is haunted by the malevolent spirit of their beloved household pet.
Source: Platinum Studios
