Dark Horse’s The Umbrella Academy Headed to Big Screen

Another day, another producer snatches up another comic book you’ve never heard of with plans to turn it into a movie franchise. So what else is new? The latest stab at comic book glory comes from Dark House and My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and is called “The Umbrella Academy”. It’s actually got a pretty nifty premise, though to be honest, in the world of comic books nifty premises are a dime a dozen. I’m still waiting for someone to turn Atomic Robo into a movie (now that would be awesome), but I digress.

So what’s “The Umbrella Academy”? No, it’s not about umbrella manufacturing, or a Resident Evil spin-off, it’s actually a superhero comic book series about an alien name Sir Reginald Hargreeves (sounds alien to me) who masquerades as a rich entrepreneur that secretly trained a group of superheroes since birth to save the world. After the alien bites it, the superheroes reunite to do just that. It’s like a “Family Ties” reunion, but Mallory didn’t show up with the biker who likes to drink and listen to AC-DC, not that there’s anything wrong with AC-DC, mind you.

The film will be coming to us courtesy of Dark Horse and producer Mike Richardson, and THR reports that Mark Bomback (”Live Free or Die Hard”, “Constantine”) has already been given the gig to adapt the comic into a live-action film.