Skybound finds life beyond undeath
As the owner of The Walking Dead franchise, Skybound has built its business on rotten and decaying corpses for years, but they've provided a solid foundation for the company just the same.
"I've been making a living with the undead for a solid 13 years at this point," Skybound CEO David Alpert tells GamesIndustry.biz. "My other partner Robert Kirkman has been making a living off it for 20. I expect to make a zombie living for the rest of my natural life."
That said, the company isn't betting everything on society continuing to have a healthy appetite for the undead. Skybound has been broadening its business over the years, expanding both the properties it draws money from and the forms of media they occupy.
These days, Alpert says The Walking Dead represents less than half of the company's business, although he's confident it will remain a significant component of Skybound "for years and decades to come."
Alpert says one of the big "step change" moments in the public perception of the company shifting from just The Walking Dead to a better-rounded business came with the 2021 launch of the animated Amazon Prime Video series based on its comic franchise Invincible.
The series debuted in late March of 2021. Amazon renewed it for two more seasons a month later.
Skybound is also partnering with Amazon's Audible on scripted long-form podcasts, the first of which – Impact Winter – similarly debuted last year and was greenlit for two more seasons.
This month marks a milestone for Skybound's big screen ambitions as it partnered with Universal Pictures on the Nicolas Cage vampire comedy Renfield, which debuts April 14 in many major markets.
Put it all together and Alpert doesn't seem worried about any lingering
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