Platinum Studios Inc., a comic-book company with several feature film adaptations set up at major studios, today announced that it has completed a $5 million round of equity financing and has filed its SB-2 statement with the SEC to become a publicly traded company.
Responsible for bringing the blockbuster Men in Black franchise to Sony Pictures, Platinum Studios generates revenue by adapting, producing and licensing its sizeable library of comic book properties for all forms of media including publishing, film, television, mobile/wireless, gaming and merchandising. President and chief operating officer Brian Altounian led the $5 Million capital raise.
‘This recent capital infusion enables us to confidently move forward and implement the next stage of our company’s growth,’ says Altounian. “Going to the public market should give us greater access to larger pools of capital and is expected to enable us to accelerate the growth of our company as we realize our model of full circle commercialization of these properties. We will be aggressively developing and marketing our current properties, while being on the lookout for additional properties that have the attributes for multimedia and franchise character development.”
Platinum Studios Comics publishes approximately 40 comic books or graphic novels per year. Properties currently found in stores include Hero By Night and KISS 4K. Platinum Studios Digital Publishing has DrunkDuck.com, which currently houses more than 4,000 comics updated on a daily or weekly basis by their creators. According to the company, the site receives more than 32 million page views per month.
The company recently announced the winner of its 2007 Platinum Studios Comic Book Challenge Presented by AT&T. Comic creators from 22 countries on 6 continents submitted their concepts in hopes of landing a publishing deal with television, movie and merchandising potential. The top 50 finalists pitched in front of a live panel of judges during the San Diego Comic-Con in July and Jorge Vega from Brockton, Mass. took the prize. His Gunplay comic is expected to launch at Wizard World Los Angeles in March of 2008.
