There are only so many comic-book superheroes left to go around. Studios are desperate to make spandex-clad flicks and shows, but film and TV rights for most of the good intellectual property is already spoken for. Disney, Fox, and Sony have the Marvel Universe; Warner Bros. has the DC Universe; Sony has the Valiant Universe … what’s left? Why, the Extreme Universe, of course. The brainchild of Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld, Extreme is a little-known and not terribly well-respected collection of IP including series with charming titles like Bloodstrike, Bloodwulf, Cybrid, and Re-Gex. And now, Netflix is their proud stepparent.
Deadline has reported that the streaming giant is paying out seven figures for the privilege of producing a series of interconnected Extreme Universe movies. They’re set to come out of a writers room helmed by veteran screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind). Netflix seems ravenous for comics material — less than a year ago, they snatched up writer Mark Millar’s Millarworld comics mini-empire, too. It’ll be fascinating to watch Netflix try to sell the public — even the hard-core geek public — on Liefeld’s ultraviolent antiheroes, which had mostly gone into the dustbin of history (though, to be fair, a Bloodstrike revival from indie sensation Michel Fiffe has certain sectors of the comics world abuzz). That superhero bubble — it just keeps inflating, doesn’t it?
