Stan Lee Partners With CAA-Backed Moonshark for 'Verticus'
Stan Lee and his POW! Entertainment have partnered with Moonshark, a mobile-gaming company incubated at CAA, on a new action adventure game, "Verticus."
Lee made the announcement Saturday morning at the Comikaze Expo, an annual comics-focused event Lee hosts at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
In "Verticus," gamers play as the eponymous hero who must overcome a series of obstacles to defuse a doomsday device at the center of the earth. An evil race of aliens known as the Obliterators have infiltrated the planet to construct said device.
In addition to his work on the story and characters, Lee is the narrator and functions as a sage advisor to the game's hero.
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"From very early on in Moonshark's life cycle we identified Stan Lee as a dream partner," Moonshark CEO Matt Kozlov told TheWrap. "We are constantly on the lookout for creative partners that are legendary, people who have left such a mark on their industry and have created an iconic style that translate to other mediums effectively."
CAA and telecommunications giant Qualcomm founded the company in 2011 as Creative Mobile Labs. Rebranded as Moonshark, it relaunched in late June with a game called "DancePad," a finger break-dancing game in which CAA client Jennifer Lopez is a partner.
That game reached the top of the charts among music games for the iPad, and at one point was the No. 3 app overall for the Apple tablet.
Kozlov believes "Verticus," which hews close to "endless runner" genre of the popular "Temple Run," can not only succeed as an app, but as fodder for a movie or television show.
"We're very excited about the character, the conflict and the world we're setting up; this game is just the tip of the iceberg," Kozlov said. "We'd like to bring 'Verticus' into other formats and ancillary revenue streams like merchandise, TV and film."
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Moonshark is not an app developer but a publisher, pairing talented programmers and developers with CAA's stable of talent. Moonshark also handles the business, from financing to marketing.
Dallas-based Controlled Chaos Studios developed the game, and Kozlov said Moonshark hired comic book artists and panelists to make it look as cinematic and authentic as possible.
"Working closely with Moonshark to build characters and storylines for a mobile game has been a new, and uniquely satisfying experience for me," Lee, founder and chairman of POW!, said in a statement. "Making 'Verticus' is a new way for me to connect with my fans and reach a whole new group of people through their mobile devices."
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