'Sin City': Frank Miller Gets TV and Movie Rights Back

When the Weinstein Company is liquidated later this year, Frank Miller's Sin City will not be part of the sale. The comic book legend has recovered the film and TV rights to his long-running, creator-owned series.

Miller and Robert Rodriguez made a pair of Sin City movies. The first, released in 2005, scored a 77-percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned around $160 million at the box office. The second, coming at the tail end of a long slump for Miller, earned just $40 million against its $65 million budget and scored 43 percent with critics in 2014.

THR reports that Lantern Capital Partner, who have bought up TWC's portfolio for just under $300 million, has reached a settlement with Miller that will restore his film and TV rights to Miller, along with the rights to the first Sin City film and theoretical rights to a TV project optioned in 2012 and never made.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, the second film, is not included in the settlement, perhaps so that Lantern can continue to exploit the film in the hopes of eventually bringing it to a break-even point on the books.

Miller's Sin City first made its way to comics in 1991. Working on the project reshaped Miller's storytelling sensibilities, and the hard-boiled, noir-inspired voice of his Sin City prose began to creep in everywhere, most notably in his approach to DC's Batman.

After years on the shelf, the Sin City TV project seemed to be building up a head of steam last year with former The Walking Dead executive producer Glen Mazarra at the helm. The project went into limbo, though -- and that could not happen at a worse time, since dozens of sexual harassment and assault allegations against The Weinstein Company co-founder Harvey Weinstein proved fatal to the company and forced its sale as investors and talent sprinted away as fast as they could.

The series, which is published in black and white with spot color, exploits noir movie and detective novel tropes, featuring ultraviolent and seductive men and women (both, for both genders) to populate the fictional Basin City, essentially the dark underbelly of a blue-collar city, filled with crime and worse.

There is no word on whether Miller plans to bring the property back to TV and film, or give it a break. Miller is currently writing and drawing Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander, a follow-up to his acclaimed 300, which also proved a successful feature film with a disappointing sequel. Matt Reeves's upcoming The Batman is reportedly based on Miller's Batman: Year One storyline.