Constantine Showrunner Dan Cerone is Developing Mind MGMT For TV

Universal Cable Productions and Dark Horse Entertainment are developing Mind MGMT, Matt Kindt’s New York Times-bestselling comic book series from Dark Horse Comics, as a TV series from Constantine and The Blacklist producer Dan Cerone.

The property is one of at least three being developed as part of Dark Horse’s first-look deal with UCP.

“Mind MGMT is basically a secret organization of super spies that have mind control powers but those power vary from agent to agent,” Kindt explained to ComicBook.com back when the series launched in 2012. “So you’ve got some agents that can make you forget things, some agents that can make you not see things — there’s other agents that can’t be killed — they have this mind over matter ability where you can hurt them but they’ll heal themselves up. There’s another guy who can make you believe that he can kill you with his finger. So he doesn’t have any weapons, but he can make you believe that he can kill you and then he can, and he does. So it’s kind of a weird sort of spy book. It’s also my first monthly book that I’m writing and drawing, so I’m trying to plant subliminal messages and little hidden things and fake ads on the back cover and extra stuff that they’re putting in there. I don’t read monthly books anymore so I’m trying to do things that would hook me back into going to the store every week.”

The result was a series that was beloved by critics and its audience, and a strong seller in the bookstore market, which often serves as a proving ground for comics destined for Hollywood.

In 2013, shortly after the first collected edition of Mind MGMT was released, the property was optioned for film by Ridley Scott; it appears that option expired and was picked by by Universal.

“It’s slow. They’re looking for a screenwriter that they like. It’s in development,” Kindt said in an interview shortly after the option was picked up the first time. “I honestly don’t pay much attention, because I’m too busy. That stuff takes care of itself. They’ll figure it out, and then my job is to keep doing the comics. They’ll call me with updates every once in a while. ‘We’re talking to this guy, or that guy.’ I’m willfully out of the loop. I can’t do much. I can worry about it — I’d rather work on the comics.”

In addition to the recent series pick-up of Umbrella Academy on Netflix with Dark Horse, UCP is currently in various stages of production and script development on a range of series including: Happy! for SYFY; The Purge for USA Network and SYFY; and a pair of projects with horror movie legend John Carpenter, among many others.