27 Jan Bloodshot Begins the Valiant Cinematic Universe

With Marvel and DC representing the most successful comic book publishers and comic book film franchises, there has been tremendous speculation about which of the second tier publishers will be able to compete in the type of Universe building that has generated billions of dollars for the Big Two. While there have been numerous successful film and television projects sourced from comics published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, IDW, Fantagraphics, Oni Press and others, their inherent lack of interconnected stories has made each success an orphan that does not help build the brand for subsequent projects.

With the upcoming Bloodshot film, Valiant Comics enters the theatrical zeitgeist alongside Marvel and DC for the first time with Vin Diesel who helped launch two massive, blockbuster film series (Pitch Black and Fast & Furious), and has played a role in the success of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films as the voice of Groot.

While an earlier trailer was criticized for possibly giving away too much plot without revealing the character look that the comic fans knew and loved, this latest international trailer reveals a bit more of the trademarks that Bloodshot fans will recognize. It’s also now prominently advertised as “From Producers of Fast & Furious,” and seemingly reveals Ax (or the Harbinger Ax, as he is also known) as the chief antagonist. This connects directly back to the Harbinger comic, and Bloodshot connects back to Eternal Warrior and Rai (the comics where Bloodshot first appeared) and the characters Ninjak and Faith have also interacted with Bloodshot, which potentially sets-up as many as five spinoffs within the Valiant film franchise.

The recent sale of Harbinger to Paramount sets up a potential Marvel/Sony or Marvel/Fox situation that sees multiple studios handling different IPs from the same source material. Historically, this distribution of rights has led to major creative control disputes and frustratingly varied quality levels between the multiple partners. But Sony’s recent cooperation with Marvel could suggest a smart and fair approach that optimizes profit and minimizes risk that places less pressure on this first film and provides an opportunity to leisurely roll out new films and connect them together after establishing some successes. This worked incredibly well for Marvel Studios, who partnered with Paramount Studios for the launch of phase one that included Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger–until Disney acquired Marvel Studios and brought all productions in-house in time for the billion-dollar-grossing first Avengers film.

Bloodshot’s first cameo appearance was in Eternal Warrior #4, but the first full appearance is in RAI #0. The price and demand for RAI #0 has been steadily on the rise since the Vin Diesel film was first announced, and continues to increase with each new trailer.