‘Paranormal Hitmen’: eOne Developing TV Series Based On Comic Books

EXCLUSIVE: eOne is developing a TV series based on the Paranormal Hitmen comic books from writer Brett Murphy and illustrator Wilson Gandolpho.

Billed as Ghostbusters meets Pulp Fiction, Paranormal Hitmen is an irreverent action-comedy that follows Gene Rizzo and Devon Grace, two mob hitmen whose lives are turned upside down when they’re accidentally recruited into a secret government agency tasked with hunting down paranormal threats. These low-down criminals then face threats from the living AND the dead—determined to control the world of the paranormal, while literally confronting ghosts of their pasts.

The first edition of Paranormal Hitmen was released by Behemoth Entertainment (the company recently acquired by Sumerian Records and Films) in January. (Behemoth owns rights to all titles in the series.) eOne will produce the TV series under the late Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner’s Altar Rock label, with Goldner and Josh Feldman exec producing alongside Murphy and Gandolpho.

Murphy is a comic book writer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who stormed onto the scene with his well-received first series, Paranormal Hitmen, and is currently writing multiple projects, including licensed work for Behemoth Comics. Gandolpho is an up-and-coming Brazilian artist with a passion for creating new, unique characters, whose work on Paranormal Hitmen was a hit with readers in the U.S. and abroad.

eOne is part of global play and entertainment company Hasbro—a talent-driven independent studio that specializes in the development, acquisition, production, financing, distribution and sales of entertainment content. The company brings to market both original and existing content, sourcing IP from Hasbro’s portfolio of 1500+ brands, and through a diversified network of creative partners and eOne companies. Other recently announced projects from eOne include a Play-Doh film written by Emily V. Gordon and produced by Jon M. Chu, which the latter may also direct; a TV adaptation of the New York Times bestselling YA novel They Both Die at the End, co-written and exec produced by Bridgerton‘s Chris Van Dusen; a pair of bitcoin money laundering scandal projects that it is developing with Forbes Entertainment; a Dungeons & Dragons series spearheaded by Red Notice filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber; and its high-concept thriller Tarot with Fuller Media, which Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark helmer André Øvredal is directing.

Altar Rock is an independent production company founded in 2017 by the late Goldner, who pioneered Hasbro’s entry into entertainment, building numerous billion-dollar franchises, including Transformers, My Little Pony and G.I. Joe. The goal of the company now run by Feldman and the Goldner family is to create the next generation of writer- and director-driven IP; stories that start on the screen, and live everywhere. Also in the works at Altar Rock is the cop-con man pic Blackfriars from director Will Gluck.

Behemoth is a comic book and video game publisher located in Texas. They sell 500,000+ comic books yearly and are currently eighth in total market share among English-language comic book publishers in revenue generated. Their title You Promised Me Darkness #1 is the best-selling black and white debut issue since 2013’s Batman: Black and White #1. Behemoth has worked with licensed partners like Netflix and Ubisoft, among others, and is currently distributed globally by Simon & Schuster. They merged with Sumerian Records in March 2022.

Behemoth Entertainment was represented in the deal for Paranormal Hitmen by The Tobias Literary Agency and UTA, which also rep Murphy and Gandolpho. The authors were also repped by Amanda Schreyer at Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton. Altar Rock is repped by UTA.