Legendary Entertainment is taking a big swing with Black Hammer, Jeff Lemire’s award-winning comic book series, which is envisioned as the source material for both film and television projects.

Lemire will serve as an executive producer with Dean Ormston, the co-creator and illustrator of the Black Hammer comic series, which Oregon-based Dark Horse Entertainment has been publishing since 2015. The acclaimed series has been nominated for eight Eisner Awards and won two, including Best New Series in 2017.

Black Hammer chronicles the surreal struggles between the heroes and villains in eerie Spiral City and in some ways follows in the genre-challenging footsteps of DC Comics’ Watchmen and Image’s Astro City as a dark deconstruction of traditional superhero mythologies.

Dark Horse Entertainment

Legendary has made a name for itself with comic-book adaptations, including the Spartan epic 300 from Dark Horse and Zack Snyder’s 2009 big-screen adaptation of Watchmen, the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons saga that is widely considered one of the definitive masterpieces of the comic book medium.

Legendary launched its brand in 2005 with Batman Begins, the first of three Christopher Nolan films set in Gotham City.

Lemire has won acclaim also for the graphic novels Sweet Tooth and Essex County, the latter being developed for screen adaptation by CBC. Lemire is in demand these days: Sony Pictures is developing two other Lemire projects (Descender and A.D.: After Death) while Anonymous Content is developing his supernatural tale The Underwater Welder, with Ryan Gosling co-producing and directing. Waypoint Entertainment is developing Plutona, with Lemire writing the screenplay.

The British artist Ormston is a 25-year veteran of the comic book field with credits that include Swamp Thing, Superman, The Sandman, The Crow and Judge Dredd.