Legendary Options “Several” ‘Black Hammer’ Movies and Shows

Earlier today it had been reported that Vertigo’s Sweet Tooth was getting a pilot order from streaming giant Hulu and now, Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston have another property heading to a screen near you — the live-action rights off their wildly-popular creator-owned comic universe Black Hammer have been purchased by Legendary Pictures.

According to the New York Times, the deal is set to encompass both movies and television shows. Legendary Television Studios president Nick Pepper told the Times that Legendary has been chomping at the bit to land a superhero property.

“With our development team, one of our big initiatives was to bring in a superhero universe,” Pepper said. “We were lucky enough that this was available.”

To date, Black Hammer includes the primary series and three spin-off mini-series, all published by indie powerhouse Dark Horse comics.

Lemire confirmed that the Black Hammer universe will be made into multiple products.

“It’s not just one book,” Lemire reflected. “It’s a whole universe with multiple books — and it will be multiple projects for film and television.”

“Black Hammer is my love letter to superhero comics as an indie comic.”

The primary series debuted in July 2016 and ran for 13 issues, wrapping up in September 2017, taking home Best New Series as the 2017 Eisner Awards. Lemire also earned a Best Writer nod for his work on Black Hammer while the series won second prize for Best Lettering.

The second property of Lemire’s this week to be moved into development, Black Hammer falls in a long line of Lemire-created properties being adapted for screen. Sony Pictures has optioned both Descender and A.D. After Death — a pair of creator-owned books published by Image Comics — while Anonymous Content (The Revenant) has tapped Ryan Gosling to direct an adaptation of Lemire’s graphic novel The Underwater Welder.

Gideon Falls, a comic Lemire is currently writing with artist Andrea Sorrentino, has been optioned by Hivemind (The Expanse) for television.

“Gideon Falls is psychological horror told with a deeply humanistic touch, a story about imperfect people who confront their own demons—imagined and supernatural alike,” said Hivemind Co-President Jason Brown. “It is this kind of expertly fashioned, character-focused genre storytelling that inspired us to form Hivemind, and it is our mission to collaborate with world-class authors, artists, and rights holders like Jeff and Andrea to bring their stories to the screen in an authentic way.”