As the entertainment industry gears up for an onslaught of deep pocketed conglomerates looking to stockpile their content streaming services, Hollywood is frantically searching for the newest IP franchise to fill both movie screens and streaming coffers. Packed with a stable of global comic book characters, could Valiant Entertainment, the award-winning comic book publisher, be the next Marvel and DC?
Younger and, in many ways, more global than its Marvel and DC competitors, Valiant has been in existence for thirty years, having been founded in 1989 by former Marvel Comics editor Jim Shooter and businessman Steven Massarsky. In early 2018, DMG Entertainment acquired full ownership of Valiant Entertainment after already owning 57% of the company. DMG is a global media and entertainment company with diverse holdings and operations across motion pictures, television, comic book publishing, gaming, next-gen technology and location-based entertainment and Valiant fit seamlessly into that landscape.
The Valiant universe includes more than 2,000 characters including X-O Manowar, Ninjak, Bloodshot, The Eternal Warrior and Faith Herbert/Zephyr, the first plus-sized female superhero. DMG already has content at various stages of production that feature Valiant characters.
DMG sees the coming cavalcade of streaming services as a boon for their Valiant comic book heroes. Three of the six major streamers that will be playing in the space, Disney, WB/ATT and
The question on everyone’s mind in Hollywood is how will all of these services survive? It won’t only be volume (they will need a massive amount of content to even play in the sandbox) but what should set them apart will be the franchises, specifically comic book franchises, because of the built-in awareness they enjoy. Currently only Disney and WB/ATT have those. That leaves the other four to jump headfirst into a virtual feeding frenzy for IP driven content.
The impending streaming free-for-all would seem like the perfect storm for an entity like Valiant and DMG. They are, for all intents and purposes, the last boat out for comic book franchises and its heroes are more grounded in the 21st century than those whose origins are from the 1950s like many of the Marvel and DC characters. That modern slant doesn’t necessarily ensure success and there's no denying that both Marvel and DC have been phenomenally successful on a global scale. But it does allow Valiant the ability to make their stories more topical and relatable to a modern, ever-changing world. It also isn’t as rooted in truth, justice and the American way, which would play well in other regions of the world, especially in entertainment juggernauts like China. Speaking about the Valiant Universe, DMG CEO Dan Mintz says, “I love Valiant's characters because they reflect today's world: they're diverse, global, and have to grapple with problems that don't have clear or easy solutions."
Whether Valiant becomes the next big franchise or not remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, there isn’t a better time than now if you’re a content supplier with a stable full of marketable characters.
