Netflix have been pretty transparent in admitting that they want an in-house marquee franchise of their own that can rival the likes of Harry Potter, Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While that seems hugely ambitious for a company that operates exclusively in streaming, history has shown that anything Netflix wants, they usually get.
Their first attempt at a big budget blockbuster didn’t go too great, though, with Will Smith and David Ayer’s Bright gaining big viewership numbers but quickly becoming forgotten about and the sequel remaining stuck in development hell. However, a recent series of hits has seen 6 Underground, Extraction, Spenser Confidential, The Old Guard and Project Power show potential for launching a multi-film series, while they’re also set to produce a sequel to Charlize Theron’s underrated actioner Atomic Blonde and hand the Russo brothers $200 million to direct Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling in espionage thriller The Gray Man.
Even though Netflix could end up with a handful of franchises at their disposal, we’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us the streaming giant were working on an Extraction sequel and a prequel series to The Witcher before either was confirmed – that they’re also said to be interested in purchasing a rival studio in order to get their hands on a comic book universe.
As we know, Paramount currently own the rights to Valiant’s roster of heroes, who got off to a pretty inauspicious start when Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot bombed at the box office. This isn’t enough to deter Netflix, though, who think that they’re more than capable of doing the characters justice in a string of movies that they believe could eventually rival the MCU. And as such, they’ve reportedly had talks about buying the studio outright.
Paramount have been valued at around $4 billion in the past, which is less than 25% of the amount that Netflix are spending on original content this year alone, so it isn’t like they can’t afford it. That being said, buying an entire studio still seems a little excessive when there are so many comic book properties out there. Not to mention that Paramount are also a little short on lucrative franchises themselves outside of Transformers and Mission: Impossible.
Of course, this is far from a sure thing and again, there’s only been internal talks about it, from what we’re told. But it’d certainly be interesting to see happen and should we learn anything more about it, we’ll let you know.
