ans of both The Darkness comic book and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay couldn’t be more excited about Starbreeze’s game adaptation. But no one is more pumped than the original creators, Top Cow comics. We spoke with CEO Marc Silvestri and COO Matt Hawkins about how the deal came together, what it was like moving the project over from Majesco to 2K Games, and what’s happening with the upcoming film and anime adaptations.

Game Informer: What is it about Starbreeze that attracted you to what they wanted to do with The Darkness game?

Marc Silvestri: Well, Matt actually put that together with our friends over at Union. And one of the things you’re always looking at when pulling video games together, it’s not unlike television and movies, where, as producers, we don’t know how to make a video game. I can barely play the games. I’m always getting my ass kicked by the younger guys at the office. But you try to find the best people for the job. You start at the top and try to work your way down. But fortunately Starbreeze came off the success of Riddick, a lot of buzz, great game, amazing technology, incredible artistry. For me personally that’s what attracted me. They not only have the technology, but they have a really great vision. Matt and Rich Leibovitz over at Union were able to make the deal with Starbreeze and pull it all together. And we’re going, “This is a great package.”

We had our guy write the game for them. For us, at least in the beginning, it’s like, “You know what? We’ve got all of our aces in the hole.” And this business is like any other business, it’s always river crossing time at that point. You’ve got to let the guys do their job. And really from the get go, even the original production drawings blew us away. When I saw the first few minutes of the working model of the game, honestly, the hair just rose on the back of my neck. I was hoping for half of what we got in quality.

Marc Silvestri and Matt Hawkins.

GI: But obviously there are a lot of differences between the game and comic. As far as I can tell, the traditional costume doesn’t even show up in the game. Are you cool with that? How did you guys compromise as to what they were going to change and what they were going to keep?

Matt Hawkins: That was very early in development. That was a decision that Union worked out with Starbreeze before we even originally sold it to Majesco.

GI: Union is your talent representation agency?

Hawkins: More than that. They’re more of a packager. In fact, one of the Union guys actually wrote the basic outline for what the game contains. The whole World War I aspect, a lot of the stuff that eventually came out in the game he wrote and did a whole development slate. We attached Starbreeze to it and then we took it to Majesco and sold it to them. And then, for various reasons, the game ended up over at 2K.

Silvestri: Which actually worked out better for us. Whenever something like that happens there’s always that period of time where you’re like, “Oh s***.” But it was pretty apparent that when we had a package like Starbreeze attached to it and the footage we already saw, that Darkness was going to be an A level game and it wasn’t going to be hard to get somebody interested in it. Fortunately, it was 2K. And they’re awesome. And they love the property.

But it was early on that the decision was made that Jackie was going to be a badass guy in a trench coat that people can relate to more immediately. And the cool stuff is all his little guys running around, and the fact that he kicks ass without them, but he kicks more ass with them.

GI: So no pangs of guilt at seeing your original designs get tossed out the window?

Silvestri: No, because Jackie was always Jackie first. That was key for us was the fact that, first and foremost, without the costume Jackie had to be a cool guy. So I actually drew Jackie before I drew him in the costume. Just a few ideas. And it was like this is the guy. Now what does he do? And where does the costume come in? But I understood completely that decision. And we didn’t fight it at all. We went, “You know what? You guys are right. You guys are 100% right. Let’s go that way.”

Hawkins: And it really depends. What we try to do is look at each genre of media and see what works better for that medium. And it made sense.

GI: Do you think you’re going to bring any of the ideas from the game over to the comic?

Silvestri: The good thing about what Starbreeze was doing and Paul Jenkins, who wrote the game, is they didn’t stray outside of that universe. In fact, they enhanced it. Our greatest hope was that,”Okay, you guys took this idea. Worked with us on it. But you came back to us with some even cooler stuff.” So we’re actually planning to relaunch some Darkness stories with a lot of the game elements in it – because those game elements came out so cool. Why waste that? These guys are great. They came up with some amazing ideas. We’re not idiots. Fans want to see that stuff.

The readers of the comics, the players of the game, the viewers of the eventual movie, they want to see the cool stuff. So if an idea comes out, no matter who our partners are, if it’s a cool idea we’re going to embrace it. And we’re putting it in.

Hawkins: There’s actually a comic that’s going to be coming out that is being illustrated by one of the Starbreeze guys. He did all of the design and all of the paintings you see here at Comic-Con. And that comic, 2K is going to print out like a bazillion copies. It’s going to be included in the jewel case of the game.

GI: Special editions of games are becoming more and more popular. Are you planning to include this as a special edition bonus?

Hawkins: I have asked them to do that because we do collectible stuff all of the time and they’re really pushing to include the comic in everything.

Silvestri: Maybe we could throw in something else for the special edition.

Hawkins: Outside of that, and that’ll come out more as a promotional comic, there’s also a five issue series that we’re doing that we’re literally calling Level One, Level Two, Level Three, Level Four, Level Five. There are five levels in the game. And we’re having Paul Jenkins, who wrote the game, write the comic. So he’s writing basically five issues that are going to be directly involved with the game. And they’re additional, it’s not just retelling the game. It’s actually stuff that would go in between, slot around, and give you more information.

Silvestri: This is a sucky word, because everyone uses it, but that’s really good synergy. That’s just the kind of stuff that, Matt’s such a great marketer, he can really sink his teeth into. Especially with partners like Starbreeze and 2K that are going, “Yeah, that’s a great idea. Plus, we can do this.” So they’re contributing back and forth. It’s terrific. It’s fun to watch the ideas come out.

Hawkins: And it’s cool for him too because he’s one of the people who created the character. He did and all of the designs and drew the original comic. So it’s kind of cool to see it come out like this.

GI: So you’ve got the comic book fans and the Riddick fans guaranteed to pick up the game. So how are you planning to sell it to the fans who maybe didn’t play Riddick and haven’t read the comic? What will be the big selling point for those guys?

Hawkins: I think it’s just a beautiful game. And I think that people walk by who may have never heard of this, it’s for the kids of course [laughs]. No, it’s a mature title and it’s violent. People walk by and are like, “What’s this?” because the trailer is so cool. It’s got horror elements, it’s got first person shooter action elements. It’s one of those things that I think a lot of those people may not pre-order it, but it’s going to come out, and I think it’s got a lot of good buzz. Most games that are good, they sell for a long time. Most games that suck, they sell for about two weeks.

Silvestri: And that’s what we’re banking on is the fact that people are already talking about it. I haven’t heard one negative comment about the game, which is a good sign. I think, as it comes closer and closer to release time that word of mouth, that buzz, is going to start increasing. And I think we’re going to come out feeling strong. Whether or not that affects comic book sales, it’s almost a moot point. No one in the comic book business anticipates that so we’re not either because we want the game to appeal to gamers, movie fans, TV fans, and comic book fans – as many people as possible.

We’ve got the elements of horror as Matt said, but what’s unique about The Darkness is horror and super hero elements rolled into one.

Hawkins: There’s been a million plug and play s*** super hero games. We could have had The Darkness out eight years ago and we could have had a Witchblade game out last year. But we really stuck to our guns and made sure we had a good developer and had approval over specific things, character designs, which is why we’ve been so anal about it.

Mark owns the company and he’s an artist so we have a different vision than maybe someone else. It’s not just about the money. We wanted a game that we could go and play. Mark plays Halo with the guys at night. I play all of these games. We want a game that we want to play.

Silvestri: Matt’s completely right. It’s not going to do you any good to get impatient and just put something out there because you need the product out there. It really is not. You ruin the franchise before it even gets out of the gate. There are a million examples of that happening, and not only in video games, but movies, TV, and comic books. If you’re sloppy, if you’re impatient, you’ll throw something out there that nobody’s going to like and you’ve screwed yourself. What’s the point? I would rather wait and Matt would rather wait and we did wait. We waited a long time. The game won’t even be out until next year. So we’re still waiting. But everything we see something new we’re going, “Worth it, worth it, worth it.”

Hawkins: And out philosophy has been we’d rather it never come out than have it come out and be bad.

GI: What were some of the things in Starbreeze that really made your checklist?

Hawkins: When I met with all of them. I have to credit Rich at Union because he had some of those designs of ours done before we actually did the deal. So he took the step. He gave me a copy of Riddick and said, “Play this.” I was familiar with Legacy, their other game, the first one before that, which to me was okay. It had some good elements to it, but Riddick was one that really came through.

We’ve always sort of held that we wanted it to be third person, but they really sold us on the fact that we could do both. Just talking to them we realized that they’re creative people and not just a bunch of suits that want to throw some licensed thing out there.

Silvestri: There was a great deal of passion from the get go. When you do a lot of art work and a lot of pre-development before you make a deal, that says a lot. It really does. When we walk into a pitch for movies or TV we’ve got to be well prepared with that pitch because the people you’re talking to know. You know, if you just throw something together half-assed, number one it’s disrespectful to them and their time, and number two, you don’t care about your own project. You just don’t care. These guys wanted to do the game. They showed us they wanted to do the game. They were respectful of the property, and that’s not speaking arrogantly like, “You have to do it this way.” Because obviously there are changes. But their ideas were great, their passion was great, and their preparation was great. It was like, “Okay, let’s make that deal and see what they can do.”
Hawkins: And those guys are so far north that they’re in the darkness like 30 days of the year. So what better team to make a game called The Darkness than the people who have 30 days with no light. [laughs]

GI: You guys mentioned a movie deal in addition to the game. How is that coming along?

Hawkins: It’s coming along. The two Pang brothers who did the smash DVD sensation, The Eye, are actually attached to direct. It’s in early development. It’s going to be a few years out, but the game’s going to come out. I’m confident we’re going to see a lot from the game. So that will come down the line. We’re also doing a Witchblade animated series, and we’re actually talking to Gonzo in Japan who are also working on a Darkness animated series in Japan.

Silvestri: They did a great job on the Witchblade series. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but they did a great job on the anime. It’s like, “All right, let’s talk about Darkness then.” And those universes really mesh really well together by design. So why not?

Hawkins: Because in our comics they have kind of a love/hate relationship. She’s a cop, he’s a mafia guy. They’ve got this sexual tension going on. So it should be good.