Joe And Anthony Russo To Executive Produce A Magic: The Gathering Animated Series For Netflix
by Erik Amaya
Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo will be tapping mana for one of their upcoming projects.
Deadline reports the pair will serve as executive producers on Netflix’s upcoming Magic: The Gathering animated series. Based on the collectable card game, the series will tell a new tale of the Planeswalkers, the dimension-hopping group of magic users within the game’s world. In a statement, the Russos said called Magic a “true passion project for us.”
Fleshing out the new premise will be Star Wars Rebels Henry Gilroy and The Tick‘s Jose Molina; who will also serve as the lead writers and co-executive producers.
“Our goal is to not only tell a compelling story leveraging Magic: The Gathering’s incredible body of work, but to also push the medium and perception of storytelling through animation,” Isaac Krauss, CEO of animation partner Octopie said in an additional statement. “This series will cross the genres of suspenseful thriller, horror, and drama with deeply developed characters the likes of which are not often seen in animation.”
In fact, characters will be one of the key elements setting the series apart from other adaptations. While strong characters exist in the lore and associated novels and comic books, the game has always relied on players being the main character. Like attempts to adapt Dungeons & Dragons for film, finding character players and viewers will empathize with in this new medium will be key to its success.
It is currently unclear when the series will debut, but expect it no earlier than late 2020.