Kind of surprised this hadn’t happened yet, actually. Not necessarily the Russo Brothers, mind you. But somebody:
After 26 years of supernatural success at retail, the tabletop trading-card game called “Magic: The Gathering” is getting its first Hollywood screen adaptation: Netflix has just announced an animated original series called Magic:The Gathering from executive producers Joe & Anthony Russo, the co-directors of Avengers: Endgame.
Apparently the Russos are MtG players and Netflix can afford their fees. Which are very likely considerable, seeing as they’re billion-dollar earners for the studio right now. And I was going to make a bad joke about being paid in Black Loti*, but I’m being good today. Besides, a mint Black Lotus goes for over 166 grand these days, so for all I know Netflix tossed in a couple as a signing bonus. Joke’d be on me then, hey?
Moe Lane
*I looked that up, damn your eyes.
My Magic story is ancient, from the time of the first Magic cards. We bought some, played for a little bit (including tournaments), created a deck that had nothing but defense, which we called the Deck of Frustration, and then we took all the cards down to the Chabot rifle range in Castro Valley and used them for target pasties. We shot holes in a large number of cards. It was probably more than a hundred, between the four of us.
There is no reason to make a Magic the Gathering show when there are plenty of better things to make into shows. How about Elric of Melnibone? or The Belgariad? Maybe adapt something by Spider Robinson. The CG is good enough to do a live action Elfquest. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books…the list is long and filled with better things than a card game, so why? WHY?
What about a Thomas Covenant series? Or a decent treatment of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter books? What about a Xanth series? Why are they scraping the bottom of the barrel when there are a whole bunch of other barrels brimming with goodness?
If they need to do a game, why not BattleTech or Shadowrun, instead of a card game?
Ok. I am calm now.
Although I loved the series as a Teen, Thomas Covenant was… problematic before the current delicate constitution age.
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John Carter? Yes, please.
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Xanth? Aside from Piers Anthony’s… oddities, this might actually be interesting. How would they handle the censored bits?
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My money would be thrown at the TV for a decent, long run Wheel of Time series (although, even for a long run, there is a LOT that could be condensed.)
The Wheel of Time could be like methadone for all the strung-out Game of Thrones fans. As far as Xanth goes, Netflix or Amazon could do it without worrying about censoring anything.
Come on…I’ll take Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Rifts…just about any RPG would be better than Magic.
I am not sure GoT fans would take to WoT.
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No rape.
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Honor.
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Nobility.
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Old World values.
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*psst* no one turns out to be a villain- except for Taim- but he just turned out to be a different villain than the popular fan theories of the time.
Knock the dust off Roger Zelazny or H. Beam Piper, why not …
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Mew
I’m with Aetius. Covenant’s kind of antihero would not fly with the SJW crowd. Heck, there’s probably some pro-leprosy group out there that would protest. (I am not going to search for it. I am not going to search for it.)
Dear God, but it’s going to be woker than woke.
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Should be an entertaining shipwreck, might even sink the franchise. Most players are probably unaware of all the frantic virtue signaling WotC has been doing for the past few years. I can’t imagine the company will pass up the opportunity to rub their “deplorable” noses in it.
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Back in the ’90s, I had a few friends who were into the game. They loaned me some cards, and showed me the ropes. I did some estimation of how much their many boxes had cost them… And decided to stick with beer.