Four years ago, filmmaker Zack Snyder and producing partner and wife Deborah Snyder met with executives to discuss possibilities in animation. The medium was growing fast inside the company, as fast as its subscriber base. One exec threw out the idea of doing something with Norse mythology.
Zack Snyder, who had spent much of his career making movies with grand mythological overtones, took to it. Partnering with storyboard artist and animation director Jay Oliva, the Snyders eventually came up with a love and revenge story titled . “We pitched them an outline; they had a few notes but they let us have free reign,” Deborah Snyder told at a Netflix animation event Thursday.
“They had no guardrails, no limitations.” That lack of guardrails or limitations may be the best way to describe the free-wheeling, anything and everything goes ethos that has overtaken Netflix’s animation arm. The company, which has been crowned victor of the streaming wars, unveiled a firehose of new and upcoming animation titles Thursday, ranging from shows for pre-schoolers, teens and adults, in styles and tones ranging from cute and glossy to lush and dark.
Timothy Olyphant, star of FX’s , will voice the killer Terminator robot in , which hails from writer Mattson Tomlin and hits Aug. 29. Natalie Portman, Emilia Clarke, Margot Martindale and Johnny Vegas are lending their voiced to , an adaptation of the Roald Dahl story being directed Phil Johnston, the director of .
Hayley Atwell, Kal Penn .
