After directing the hyper-successful, Infinity-Saga-ending Avengers: Endgame, directors Anthony and Joe Russo have a new project: adapting the 26-year-old collectible card game Magic: The Gathering for the small screen.
Netflix announced Monday that the Russos would team with Wizards of The Coast and Hasbro for an animated series based on the mythology of the fantasy game. The Russos will “oversee the creation of an all new storyline and expand on the stories of the Planeswalkers” (sorry, Urza’s saga hopefuls) and will see the heroes and villains of the universe “contend with stakes larger than any one world can hold.”
“We have been huge fans and players of Magic: The Gathering for as long as it has been around, so being able to help bring these stories to life through animation is a true passion project for us,” the Russos said in a joint statement.
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The Russos are set to executive produce the series, with writers Henry Gilroy (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Jose Molina (The Tick, Jordan Peele’s Weird City) serving as showrunners. Yoriaki Mochizuki (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) is on board as supervising director and co-executive producer.
Bardel Entertainment (Rick and Morty, Teen Titans Go!, and Netflix’s The Dragon Prince) is set to run point on the show’s animation. Octopie Network (Neo Fighter Dream Crisis) will oversee production on the series, with Todd Makurath (How to Be a Serial Killer), Eric Calderon (Afro Samurai), and Dave Newberg (Brad Neely’s Harg Nallin’ Sclopio Peepio) serving as producers, and Mike Larocca (Deadly Class) and Octopie CEO Isaac Krauss serving as executive producers.
“Working with Joe and Anthony, Wizards of the Coast, and Netflix on such a universally cherished brand is a real highlight for our studio.” said Krauss in a statement. “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. 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.”
The Magic: The Gathering series joins a growing roster of adult-themed animation at Netflix, with traditional anime like Devilman Crybaby, Aggretsuko, and Ultraman living alongside Castlevania and the upcoming Pacific Rim and Altered Carbon series.
For Wizards of the Coast, the announcement is a coup for a property long trapped in Hollywood development cycles — most recently, in 2014, Fox hired Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman to write a feature adaptation of the game — and now fostered by one of the leading media companies on the planet.
Magic: The Gathering kills off a major character, creates a new Signature Spellbook “More fans are enjoying Magic now than at any time in its 25-year history thanks to the enduring popularity of the tabletop game and our latest release War of the Spark,” said Chris Cocks, president of Wizards of the Coast, in a press release. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Joe and Anthony Russo to bring Magic: The Gathering’s rich and diverse cast of characters and worlds to Netflix in a way that will delight our many fans and those new to the franchise.”
Cooper Myers
Is Magic Yea Forums? I thought it was /tg/.
Grayson Turner
It's news about a Magic cartoon
Charles Long
>no Urza >no weatherlight it's shit
Luke Bailey
Wait, a cartoon? I thought it was live-action. My bad.
Jaxon Edwards
Did not you read the news? Speak even which studio will animate the series
Also I hope they skip over the Eldrazi business UNLESS it takes a whole season on its own. Rushing the defeat of major cosmic horrors and treating them like a couple of level 1 minibosses was always fucking stupid.
I'd rather see it not have anything to do with any in game storlyine
James Barnes
Well, so far so good. I'm cautious but optimistic.
Vraska is best grill and she deserves her boi blue
Hunter Reyes
This gives me more hope than I initially had, they're good directors. Shame the source material is very bad in some spots, though there is a lot of potential.
Michael Scott
Oh shit, this is a cartoon. Well, now I'm interested
Slightly less interested. Please have more framerate than TDP's first season
Owen Wright
Either they're going to have to scale it way, way back to follow Jace and His Amazing Friend's origins or something, or it's going to hop into the world fresh with some new planeswalker being the audience surrogate. There's so goddamn much to unpack to get to the Eldrazi, Phyrexia, or War of the Spark with any expediency.
They introduced a couple of fresh faces in War, as well as dredging up some underutilized pre-existing ones, so if we don't follow the Gatewatch, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up following some of them instead.
An incredibly easy point to jump into Jace's backstory is after he gets Amnesia'd by Alhammarret and starts planeswalking around with no idea who he is.
Oliver Jackson
Wait,this means the leaks for some months ago were true???
Noah Young
>yfw the plot revolves around stopping Baron Sengir
Carson Anderson
We shall see.
Owen Brooks
Did you guys bitched about Spider-verse low framerate as well?
Spider-verse played around with framerate in an interesting way, depicting Miles clumsily fumbling around on 2s while Pete was confidently swinging smooth on 1s.
Lincoln Flores
If its not the brothers war up to the end of invasion who cares?
Christian Morales
Looking forward to the kino
Jason Jones
Why hasn’t Didney recruited them for Star Wars yet?
Ryder Morgan
Actually I thought Spider-Verse's framerate looked a bit off in the beginning but it's style and effortless animation during action sequences and intense/funny moments shined through and you don't notice it
Carter Scott
I believe they are done with big movies from now on.
Benjamin Martin
Thought they were going to pure action movies, but i welcome this.
Oliver Flores
It says an all new storyline, which I guess means no retreads of the Eldrazi, Bolas, or Phyrexia.
Which is good. Magic's multiverse is big enough that you are just better off doing your own thing rather than trying to re-do an existing storyline that was either good (so you had better be better) or as was more common was bad (so you are starting from a weak position).
The real question is whether it will be about Gatewatch adventures, or whether it will be a new cast of characters with occasional appearances from canon characters. I feel like the second option is the better one, because that way WOTC doesn't have to juggle competing canons, but they can always make cards of the 'new' characters without much difficulty as a cross promotion.
Julian Morris
Will this lead to the dissolved of the reserved list?
Because that's the only way I'm going to buy Magic again.
Liam Perez
So its gonna have the same frame rate as the card game. Talk about staying true to the source material.
Angel Barnes
>Gatewatch we will never be free
James Peterson
yawn
Cooper Watson
why even bother with that halfassed comment?
Nicholas Rivera
>Not wanting new animation Fuck off
Jason Nelson
>tfw they kiss eachother after War of the Spark
Jackson Richardson
>Going from the avengers to the jacetice league/the gatevengers
reserved list is a meme that will never, ever die. The secondary market would explode if it died.
Zachary Young
>executive produce Wow, it's fucking nothing. >writers Henry Gilroy (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Jose Molina (The Tick, Jordan Peele’s Weird City) Fucking nothing.
William Torres
>[citation needed]
Landon Jenkins
The secondary market isn't reliant on the Reserved List. Shit like Modern and Commander staples are where all the real sales go.
Christopher Johnson
The Avengers used to be literally whos a decade (and a half?) ago.
Anthony Bailey
I used to play Magic a decade ago in college (with a borrowed deck) and later using Cockatrice, but I had no idea Magic had such thing as "lore", beyond established races and settings. I guess it makes sense in retrospective. Where can I learn about its story?
Kevin Sanchez
I am for once, ready for this ride. See you in the 20+ threads from the future!
Brayden Baker
That shit is a bubble that has drastically inflated over the last several years. I think it'll crash some day, but in the mean time, I'll keep buying Chinese fakes imstead
Isaac Ward
!!! The Magic website has short stories that it releases periodically. I recommend you start reading from Innistrad. magic.wizards.com/en/story
I mean, technically, the "arc" that just ended began in Magic Origins/Zendikar, but it's not very well written in my own opinion until Innistrad.
Tarkir, the furthest back that page goes, is good though. Fucking badass world.
Will do, thanks! >click on "Innistrad" >about 10 stories pop out >the first is from 2016 Well I guess this explains some things, this is more of a recent development, I take it? I quit Magic in like 2012 at the latest. I do prefer timelines in fact, so this might be a good way to begin also.
James Perry
The first Innistrad storyline happened in 2011-2012. The 2016 one is the return.
Cameron Brooks
How many more nails will they drive into magic's coffin?
Samuel Price
The writing quality ping-pongs wildly between authors, so if you're planning on reading it your expectations should be tempered. I like shlocky pulpy fantasy though because I'm cheap like that.
Leo Davis
Who is going to be the main protagonists? Liliana as a antihero? Bolas as a Thanos-like treat?
Wyatt Thompson
>How many more nails will they drive into magic's coffin? Ask Adam Osidis. It's fine, I already read the StarCraft comics.
Well, digital playing is the actual one. Is simply better. If anything, this is Hasbro's best move.
Oliver Sanchez
Boy I can't wait for the Jace show starring Jace with guest appearance of Jace! Also blatantly featuring a trans character and every knight and name character other than Jace is female.
Lincoln Morgan
Isn't Chandra going to be the MC?
Kayden Jackson
>MTG cartoon >Netflix So more "#WOKE" SJW pandering garbage ruining another franchise? No fucking thanks.
Thomas Bailey
WotC has being such company for years, I can tell you don't know shit about what you're talking about.
Aiden Anderson
BFZ would be cool without the OGW parts. WAR would be a shitshow without massive rewrites.
Jayden Sanders
I just want a Fall of The Thran Empire series. Is that too much to ask?
Leo Evans
>Bardel Entertainment (Rick and Morty, Teen Titans Go!, and Netflix’s The Dragon Prince) is set to run point on the show’s animation. It's going to be shit and it didnt even have to be. Why the fuck would you give such a garbage animation studio work on a show like this, their CG work is better (still trash) so hopefully it isn't 2D but god fucking damn it just shill out the extra bucks for a studio with skill, why bother shilling out so much for a big name director just to ruin it like that
Jeremiah Brooks
>i dont care if it's good as long as it's new go back where you came from
Josiah Harris
Now I just need a modern Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.
I would also like a Warhammer (the future space one) cartoon but I feel only edgy teens who hate their dads would like it. Unless it followed the Tau.
Jackson Diaz
With that production posse I have a hard time seeing it being bad...oh no, I jinxed it.
Lincoln Bennett
>Bardel Entertainment (Rick and Morty, Teen Titans Go!, and Netflix’s The Dragon Prince) is set to run point on the show’s animation. >Not by Hasbro's own animation studio they propped up, Boulder Media
Wait for a lot of gay stuff Skeleton actress and shirtless men
Brandon Ward
>Wait for a lot of gay stuff
That's already around, just look at Chandra.
Nolan Butler
I can see why, Hasbro's studio is mostly flash. Sure Bardel switch to 3d animation had a rough start, but they have gotten a lot better in just one season.
Ryan Phillips
>altered carbon anime series
Why?
Oliver Gutierrez
She's bi, confrimed to had feeling for Gideon but also, maybe, something for Nissa.
Jack Thomas
I thought her and Nissa lezzed out on Kaladesh.
Cooper Lee
Only good jacetice league walker is Lily and she has best backstory for a 13 episode season, followed closely by Gideon. After that they are stuck with either Elspeth, Urza or OC because everyone else sucks shit
All I need to know is that Netflix made the Voltron reboot, The Dragon Prince, and the Carmen Sandiego reboot. Enough to know they should NEVER be trusted as far as animation goes.
Camden Garcia
And that obviously make them SJW and #WOKE by design, because they produced a bunch of other animation stuff and not because other companies simply chose to work with the company.
Jacob Martinez
This is my biggest fear about the cartoon, I don't think I like how a decent portion of lore discussion mow involves shipping.
Oh joy, I can’t fucking wait to watch the utterly retarded Jacetice League fight Nicol BolasLuthor AGAIN. Remember kids, there’s no such thing as wanking too much to Jace!
Zachary Bailey
You'll suck Tefari's cock for another 2 years in standard and you'll like it.
James Robinson
>Not Jace/Vraska and Liliana/Gideon Begone.
Elijah Gray
LILIANA IS A WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE literally sold her body to demons
Michael Clark
Lily is only for tragic romance with Gideon, Jace a shit
Dominic Butler
She went from inmortal sex witch to old lady, I get her.
>Well I guess this explains some things, this is more of a recent development, I take it? I quit Magic in like 2012 at the latest. Nearly everything after New Phyrexia has to do with the Jacetice league, which taints it heavily. The Nu-walkers are pretty shit. If you want to read the multi dimensional adventures of The man with the biggest dick in the universe read all about Urza.
Aaron Long
t. QuarterPounder
Austin Reed
HE WAS A HERO
Lucas Young
I'm sure we'll get Venser back eventually, but I don't know that you'll be all too thrilled to see him.
I don't think they straight up revive dead people. They're have brought back Myr-whatever his name was. Plus Venser died of supercancer+giving up his heart.spark.
That said, UB Venser as a villain for one of the sets would be dank.
Angel Torres
Fuck it, I just want an episode featuring the slivers abilities animated to satisfy the Timmy inside of me
>First Avatar >Now This All hell is going to break loose. Prepare for the salt lads, it's going to be delicious.
Kayden Gray
true
Anthony King
Why can't they just crash their bus and crush their legs and hands and become blind?
Grayson Hernandez
Based Russoes
James Jenkins
>Netflix announced Monday that the Russos would team with Wizards of The Coast and Hasbro for an animated series based on the mythology of the fantasy game. The Russos will “oversee the creation of an all new storyline and expand on the stories of the Planeswalkers” It's not an adaptation of an existing story.
Gabriel Jenkins
>gonna have to go to FNM and face some never-played-before kid with Chris Hensworth's dumbass face on a card while he tries to use it like they did in the show instead of how the rules have been for years fml
