The Secrets of Kane – Part Two

This is the second interview of the team that brings you Solomon Kane. This time, we spoke to Fredrik Malmberg, head of Cabinet Entertainment who holds the rights of Robert E. Howard’s characters. A perfect opportunity to ask him questions about his collaboration with Mythic Games and to get some news about the Puritan.

How is the collaboration with Mythic Games going? Are you happy with the board game, the visuals, and the sculpts that you’ve seen so far?

We have a great relationship with Mythic Games, and we’ve worked with Leo previously on the Conan board game from Monolith Edition. So we knew that the attention to detail, quality of production, and customer care would always be the focus. Games are close to our heart because we started our careers in tabletop gaming ourselves, so to see Robert E Howard’s character exploring the adventures in game format is exactly our preferred approach. I love the choice of Guillem for the artwork, he did some outstanding illustrations for the Conan game and for Mythic Battles. When I saw the first Solomon Kane art, it invoked for me art by 19th century landscape masters, and I think this is very clever because Solomon Kane travels around the world in his adventures, and it sets the art apart from the normal action character art we see in games. It becomes timeless. The miniature sculpts are also great pieces.

How important is Solomon Kane among the Howard’s characters whose rights you hold?

For me, this enigmatic character is one of my favourites. The idea of historical adventures, mixed with some supernatural elements, is very appealing. Hints of mystical powers (like his staff) and the mystery of where this man comes from, and will be going, is very cool I think. And of course, while it may sound easy to see the world in such black and white terms as Kane, that’s his cross to bear, so to speak.

Absolutely. Kane was one of the first characters we got into gaming when we acquired the library, with PEG’s RPG. We also tried a comic book relaunch a few years back with Scott Allie writing. We are now in discussions about videogame adaptations, which is a natural, as well as new fiction. Your game is the focus for now because it’s a prestige project in a key category. I am also happy that we have now gotten the film rights back. The previous managers of the REH estate had set up the previous film project but now we have the chance to start fresh.

We believe that a premium format television series is a better format for the character. This is something we are pursuing currently both for Conan the Cimmerian, El Borak, and Dark Agnes, and in development we feel that the worlds, and characters, that REH created really benefit from a more mature and longer format. To do a 10-episode series is basically like making two super long movies, and it lets the stories and characters breathe and develop more naturally.