Adi Shankar Talks the Future of Big Franchise Gaming Adaptations

Adi Shankar produced Netflix’s Castlevania series, which is one of the most highly-regarded video game adaptations of all-time. Shankar helped to ensure that the series stayed true to the video games that inspired it, resulting in a very big success for the streaming platform, and for longtime Castlevania fans. The show’s success has naturally led to other games receiving similar animated adaptations on Netflix, such as Arcane and Cuphead. In an interview with ComicBook.com’s ComicBook Nation podcast, Shankar spoke about how Castlevania seemed like an anomaly, but led to a new business model.

“When Castlevania came out in 2017, it was a complete anomaly. Like this was something that just came out of left field. No one really knew what this was or how it was gonna do, it just kinda became a sleeper hit. I saw the writing on the wall. I was like ‘okay, this is now gonna become a business model for people.’ It’s great. This is gonna be an anomaly for like a nanosecond and now this is gonna become this business model of taking video games and turning them into like animated series for the streaming platforms,” said Shankar.

Adaptations based on video games have come a very long way over the last few years. Companies like Netflix have seen that faithful works that are respectful to the source material can find a lot of success. That does not always equate to quality, but adaptations like Castlevania and Arcane have offered quality on top of faithfulness.

Shankar went on to say that he could have strictly followed the business model of Castlevania, but has instead shifted focus towards something grounded in gaming, but also quite a bit different. Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is loosely based on Far Cry 3‘s Blood Dragon expansion, but it also draws inspiration from the ’90s animated series Captain N: The Game Master. That series played fast and loose with its video game source material, and it definitely sounds like Captain Laserhawk will do the same. It seems like a strange concept, and it’s a safe bet the series wouldn’t exist without Castlevania!

Are you looking forward to Captain Laserhawk? Do you think Castlevania opened the door for other animated video game adaptations? Let us know in the comments or share directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!