iWorld
Netflix, Dark Horse Entertainment extend its partnership
Mumbai: OTT platform Netflix and Dark Horse Entertainment have extended their partnership. Under this multi-year deal, Dark Horse will continue to give Netflix a first look at its IP for both film and TV.
Netflix and Dark Horse recently collaborated on the third season of The Umbrella Academy, which in its first four weeks reached the Netflix Global Top 10 in TV in 91 countries with 283.55 million hours viewed (as of July 17, 2022).
New projects in active development under the Dark Horse Entertainment banner include:
Bang! will star Idris Elba (The Harder They Fall, Concrete Cowboy, Luther) and will be directed by David Leitch (Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2).
Based on the comic series by Matt Kindt and Wilfredo Torres, the feature film adaptation of the spy thriller will be written by Kindt (Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe) and Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train, Fear Street Part 2: 1978).
When a terrorist cult sets out to start the apocalypse with a series of novels meant to brainwash their readers, the world’s most celebrated spy is sent to track down and kill the author responsible.
Mind MGMT will see Curtis Gwinn (Stranger Things) executive produce this series adaptation of the comic book series by Matt Kindt. A young woman stumbles onto the top-secret Mind Management program. Her ensuing journey involves weaponised psychics, hypnotic advertising, talking dolphins, and seemingly immortal pursuers, as she attempts to find the man who was Mind MGMT’s greatest success—and its most devastating failure. But in a world where people can rewrite reality itself, can she trust anything she sees?
Additional Dark Horse projects in development with Netflix include Revenge Inc., a drama series focused on a secret, underground company that specialises in revenge with Matthew Arnold as showrunner/executive producer and executive producers Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg and Chris Tongue, as well as Lady Killer, an action thriller film about a 1950s housewife leading a secret life as a highly-trained killer for hire, with Blake Lively starring and producing, based on the comic series by Joelle Jones and Jamie S. Rich.
Previous Dark Horse Entertainment releases include the Netflix film Polar, starring Mads Mikkelsen; the Netflix animated series Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, returning later this year with a second season; and the animated film Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness, which recently spent four weeks in the Netflix Film (English) Top 10.
iWorld
X launches XChat messaging app on iOS with calls and encryption
Standalone app marks shift from “everything app” vision, adds E2E messaging.
MUMBAI: From one big app to many small chats, X seems to be splitting its ambitions. X has rolled out its standalone messaging app, XChat, to iOS users, opening up a new front in its evolving product strategy. The app allows users to connect with existing X contacts through private and group messages, file sharing, as well as audio and video calls. The launch follows a limited beta phase, where the platform tested the product with a smaller user base to refine the experience. Now available publicly, XChat marks a notable pivot from earlier ambitions championed by Elon Musk to turn X into a single “everything app” combining messaging, payments, commerce and more.
Instead, the company under xAI ownership and backed by SpaceX appears to be building a suite of standalone applications, each targeting specific use cases while expanding its broader ecosystem.
At launch, XChat includes end-to-end encrypted messaging, PIN-based access, disappearing messages, and features such as message editing, deletion for all participants, and screenshot blocking. The company has also said the app is free from advertisements and tracking mechanisms, positioning it as a privacy-first alternative in a crowded messaging space.
However, security claims around the platform are likely to face scrutiny. Earlier iterations of XChat drew criticism from experts who argued it fell short of established encrypted platforms like Signal. With the wider rollout, the app is expected to undergo fresh evaluation to assess whether those concerns have been addressed.
Beyond messaging, XChat will also house X’s Communities feature, which is being discontinued on the main platform due to low usage and spam concerns. Migrating these users could provide an early boost to adoption, effectively turning XChat into both a communication and community hub.
The move underscores a broader recalibration at X less about cramming everything into one app, and more about spreading bets across multiple touchpoints, one message at a time.
