New Republic Pictures and award-winning film and television producer Bradley J. Fischer (Zodiac, Shutter Island, Black Swan, Suspiria, The House with a Clock in Its Walls) have acquired the exclusive rights to all works in Michael Moorcock’s seminal fantasy-horror series THE ELRIC SAGA, buying the iconic IP for veteran television writer-showrunners Glen Mazzara (“The Dark Tower”, “The Walking Dead”) and Vaun Wilmott (“Prison Break”, “Star Trek: Discovery”).

The Elric stories are Moorcock’s best-selling works, a series of complex and layered novels that take place across multiple dimensions of reality and alternative universes.  Indeed, it was Moorcock himself who coined the word “multiverse” as a fictional concept in his 1963 novel “The Sundered Worlds,” a term now used to describe the broader worlds of movies and television franchises from Marvel and DC to Stephen King and Star Wars.

Fischer and New Republic see the Elric saga, which begins with the 1972 novel “Elric of Melniboné,” as having similar cross-platform franchise potential.  On the television front, Mazzara, Wilmott and Fischer are in discussions with multiple cable outlets and SVODS for a potential series. The novels are sensual and atmospheric sword-and-sorcery tales that center on Elric, a brooding albino warrior who presides over an unruly, decadent island nation. The novels follow Elric on a series of adventures, in which he is betrayed by his cousin, sent into exile and attempts to come to terms with his own humanity.  The series comprises 11 novels and a number of short stories and has been adapted into several comics and graphic novels.

Novelist Michael Moorcock has received a number of awards for his writings, including the Nebula Award for his novella “Behold the Man” and the World Fantasy Award for “Gloriana.”  He has won the Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Awards for Life Achievement and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002.

“Glen, Vaun, Brian and I all grew up on the iconic works of genre masters like Michael Moorcock, and the Elric Saga is among the most influential titles in the canon of fantasy-horror storytelling,” said Fischer.  “We feel privileged to have been entrusted by Mike and Linda Moorcock with a character and narrative universe as rich and diverse as ELRIC, and hope to deliver to generations of fans the enthralling experience they’ve been demanding for so many years from these masterworks of genre literature.”

Glen Mazzara is currently the Executive Producer and Writer of “The Dark Tower” TV series for MRC and Amazon Studios and was recently the Creator, Executive Producer, and Showrunner of A&E’s series, “Damien”, based on the classic horror film, THE OMEN.  Mazzara was also Executive Producer and Showrunner for seasons two and three of AMC’s record-breaking series “The Walking Dead”.  The series earned him two Saturn awards, a Bram Stoker award for Superior Achievement in a Screenplay for the season three finale as well as a Writer’s Guild of America nomination for his writing on season one.  He is a co-founder of the WGA Staff Writer Bootcamp and is a frequent speaker at the WGA, the Writers Guild Foundation, the WGA Showrunner Training Program, and the WGA Writers Access Project.

Vaun Wilmott created, executive produced and served as show-runner on supernatural action drama “Dominion”, which ran for two seasons on Syfy. He was an Executive Producer on “Prison Break” Fox and most recently served as a co-executive producer on “Star Trek: Discovery” for CBS All Access.  Wilmott just sold “Bent”, a crime drama following a Texas law enforcement officer, to Jerry Bruckheimer TV and CBS Television Studios for the CBS network.

Bradley J. Fischer is a prominent motion picture and television producer whose films have grossed over $1.3B in global box office to date. Projects include: Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo; David Fincher’s Zodiac starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr.; Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, which he executive produced; Eli Roth’s family chiller The House with a Clock in Its Walls starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett; Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria starring Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton and Chloe Moretz; American Dream/American Knightmare, a documentary directed by Antoine Fuqua about the life and career of Death Row Records founder Suge Knight; and the 2019 Fox Searchlight genre smash Ready or Not starring Samara Weaving and directed by Radio Silence, which was a critical and commercial hit grossing north of $57 million on a $6 million budget.  He is also an executive producer on the Netflix show, “Altered Carbon”, based on the iconic science fiction novel by Richard Morgan. Fischer’s upcoming slate includes The Long Walk at New Line, based on the book by Richard Bachman to be directed by Andre Ovredal; The Brigands of Rattlecreek with Park-Chan Wook directing; The Last Voyage of the Demeter with Amblin Partners; as well as other projects with filmmakers and writers including Francis Lawrence, Tim Miller, Dennis Lehane and Alex Proyas.

New Republic Pictures co-financed and produced the critically acclaimed Elton John biopic Rocketman, which is the debut film of its Paramount Pictures first-look co-financing and distribution deal. Next is the Sam Mendes-directed Amblin project, 1917, to be released Christmas Day 2019.  With a mandate to produce thought-provoking commercial films in a filmmaker-friendly environment, New Republic has been ramping up with aggressive development acquisitions accordingly. It recently won a bidding war for the rights to Undiscovered Country, the new Image Comics graphic novel from Scott Snyder and Charles Soule, which recently made a splash at New York Comic-Con, was hailed as the next Walking Dead and is Image Comics’ biggest launch in five years.

Prior to launching New Republic, Oliver co-founded and ran Cross Creek Pictures where he financed and produced a slate of films that started with Black Swan and went on to include Black Mass, Everest, Hacksaw Ridge, and American Made, among others.