Home Entertainment Netflix and the Russo brothers team up for a Magic: The Gathering animated series

Netflix and the Russo brothers team up for a Magic: The Gathering animated series

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What do you get when you take an adaptation of one of the biggest games in the world, throw in two of the world’s biggest directors and the support of the worlds largest streaming service? Hopefully a compelling TV series. After being adapted into a variety of video games, Wizard of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering is making a jump to TV in the form of a new animated series that is to be created by Joe and Anthony Russo, to be delivered via Netflix.

Magic: The Gathering, created in 1993 has been the world’s best selling trading card games for many years now and certainly has no shortage of stories to tell in its extensive lore that has come around from many forms of literature tie-ins that have given the game considerable depth in that department. So, it’s no surprise that Hasbro and the Russo brothers have considered a series format to tell these vast collections of stories after several attempts at making a movie out of it have fallen short.

Netflix announced the new show last night with the Russo brothers following up with a statement of their own calling it a passion project of theirs as they are both huge fans of the game. Netflix further confirmed with the news that Russo will “oversee the creation of an all-new storyline and expand on the stories of the Planeswalkers” featured in previous versions of the franchise. Likely meaning that the series will not just be a retelling of existing Magic: The Gathering stories, but rather look to expand on them and take several of the characters and story threads in entirely new directions. Something which should be appealing to fans who are all caught up on the lore.

As to what type of series we can expect from this franchise, Octopie, the animation studio who has been tasked with overseeing the production promises that the series could cover new territory for an animated series:

cross the genres of suspenseful thriller, horror, and drama with deeply developed characters the likes of which are not often seen in animation

This is a series which could prove to be massive for Netflix with Magic: The Gathering already possessing quite a devoted fanbase. If they can do a solid job in bringing these stories to life in a ground-breaking manner then this has the potential to be one of the biggest drawcards for the streaming service amongst a host of already compelling content for fantasy and sci-fi crazed fans.

Last Updated: June 4, 2019

12 Comments

  1. Guz

    June 4, 2019 at 09:39

    o/

    Reply

  2. G8crasha

    June 4, 2019 at 09:40

    I have never played the game in any form, but I am always down for any fantasy series, and the Russo boys are very capable individuals, so I have high expectations for this.

    Reply

  3. Original Heretic

    June 4, 2019 at 11:45

    This is one franchise that I know nothing about. Don’t know ANY of the lore, so it’ll all be new to me. Cool!

    Reply

  4. Llama In The Rift

    June 4, 2019 at 09:32

    It’s Time To D-D-D-D Duel…

    How about a round of Gwent…?

    Reply

  5. For the Emperor!

    June 4, 2019 at 09:40

    New stories? But I wanted Liliana Vess and Sorin Markov* stories! No matter, I will watch this 🙂

    *Making a Hex-Blade Warlock in D&D sort-of based on him. Vampire race from the Zendikar pages, and with a Glaive rather than a sword 🙂 And unfortunately no sangromancy

    Reply

    • Kromas

      June 4, 2019 at 10:21

      I think they need to start at the begining. With the brothers war.

      Reply

      • Jacques Van Zyl

        June 4, 2019 at 10:45

        Russo brothers directing the brothers’ war? Yes! That would be epic.

        Reply

      • For the Emperor!

        June 4, 2019 at 12:21

        I am honestly nowhere in the current lore. All I know about the lore:
        – Sorin Markov is AWESOME
        – Liliana Vess is AWESOME, and the first Plainswalker card I got 🙂

        I really need to start reading lore on Magic and D&D, but that would cut into my playing time 😛

        Reply

        • Kromas

          June 4, 2019 at 12:22

          All you need to know is there was this guy called Urza and his brother Mishra was a dick. Long story short Urza becomes a planeswalker and builds the coolest planeswalking magic ship called the Weatherlight.

          Reply

      • Craig "Crios" Boonzaier

        June 4, 2019 at 13:15

        No, take it further back. than that: “The Thran”.
        It’s the first book in the lore time wise and talks about the rise of Yawgmoth.

        Reply

        • Kromas

          June 4, 2019 at 14:05

          I meant the games beginning story.

          Reply

  6. Craig "Crios" Boonzaier

    June 4, 2019 at 13:24

    So many potential stories and lore to use here.
    As much as I like the beginnings of The Thran => Brother’s War => then general Dominaria cycle.
    Starting with the Planeswalkers is probably a good idea as that is the most current storyline and is likely to pull in the largest audience.

    Reply

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