Japanese conglomerate Itochu Corporation has bought a 10-percent share of Comic Book Movies, the Hollywood-based “franchise-building entertainment company” founded by movie producer Michael Uslan (Batman Begins, Constantine) and M. Jonathan Roberts.

Itochu, whose extensive holdings include the 12,000-store worldwide FamilyMart chain, will serve as CBM’s licensing and merchandising partner in Japan.

Last year, Itochu, Comic Book Movies and Lotus Inc., CBM’s Japanese agent, partnered with Ishimori Entertainment to develop films based on the works of the late Shotaro Ishinomori (Cyborg 009, Kamen Rider).

CBM was founded in 2005 to develop entertainment franchises based on American and international comics.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 8th, 2006 at 8:29 am and is filed under Comic Books, Industry, Manga, Movies, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.