Paris-based talent agent Florent Lamy, who operates under the banner of Elevate Artist Management (EAM), has unveiled an ambitious project to create a Marvel-style operation developing new content out of forgotten French comic book super-heroes.
The new activity will run alongside EAM’s core work of representing US and UK talent in continental Europe, with current names on its books including Emmanuelle Chriqui, Djimon Hounsou, Megan Fox, Elsa Pataky, James Foley and Gina Gershon and Bob Balaban.
“France has an extraordinary heritage when it comes to homegrown comic-book superheroes. Our strategy is to reclaim this forgotten universe in the same way as the Americans have revived their superheroes,” said Lamy, who has been developing the project for more than three years.
As part of the strategy, Lamy has launched a new subsidiary company bannered Imagineers Studio, aimed at the development and production of films and series drawing on French and European super-hero characters.
In a first step to achieving this goal, Imagineers Studio has acquired the rights to a series of works and characters created in the 1980s by French comic book artist and creator Jean-Yves Mitton, who published under the pseudonym of John Milton and is still active to this day.
“Jean-Yves Mitton is France’s answer to Stan Lee if you like. He even worked with Marvel and Stan Lee a long time ago.,” explained Lamy, referring to the legendary late founder of Marvel Comics.
The properties include the ‘Mikros’ saga about Harvard entomologists and Olympic-standard athletes Mike Ross, Priscilla Conway and Bobby Cran who are kidnapped and shrunk by invading insectoid extra-terrestrials but in the process gain superpowers.
It has also secured the rights to ‘Mikros’ spin-off character Epsilon as well as the ’L’Archer Blanc’ (The White Archer) series, about a Robin Hood-esque character fighting for justice in a futuristic fantasy world and further characters Photonik and Cosmos.
The company is developing a slate of French and English-language films and series inspired by these properties and aimed at US and European platforms.
“Our ambition is to create a French Marvel with a universe shared uniquely by forgotten French and European superheroes, with the added aim of enlisting French talents who have built their careers in Hollywood, in different fields such as special effects and art design, to work on these creations,” said Lamy.
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