Netflix’s ‘Devil May Cry’ Showrunner Adi Shankar Crowns Himself “The Guy That Can Save Hollywood”, Says He’s “Making American Animation F–ing Cool”,
Adi Shankar, the producer and writer behind Netflix’s Castlevania and Devil May Cry, has stated in an interview his intent to revolutionize American animation. Or rather, that he’s “making American animation f–g cool,” and is “the guy that can save Hollywood.”
In an interview with Esquire’s Eric Francisco, Shankar discussed production on Devil May Cry and having acquired the rights to make something with Duke Nukem. The interview also discussed his influences, general impression of what his career is doing, and what it’ll do to the American animation industry.
Francisco touched on how Shankar was living in the US just two days before 9/11, and how he was drawn to pop culture and more at the time. As Francisco puts it, “nu metal on MTV, reruns of action movies on cable TV, and Devil May Cry on PlayStation 2.”
The latter would manifest in Shankar’s take on Devil May Cry, making the demons of hell a clear allegory for Middle-Eastern refugees, with hell being bombed by the US, eager for a new energy source, all set to Green Day’s American Idiot. Shankar explained it reflected how he “saw the world” in 2001.
“Season 1 is about how we all lost something as children, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to reclaim it or find it or heal from it,” Shankar explained. Francisco also highlighted when Shankar cosplayed as Dante when in the crowd at WWE’s Monday Night Raw.
“I wanted to be a professional wrestler,” Shankar admitted. “If you’re a wrestler, you live the gimmick. It’s a 360-degree art form.” Francisco segways this into how Shankar has “played the heel throughout his career,” though referring to red carpet events for his films where he was “in KISS-esque eye makeup, flowing raven hair, and rock star leather and denim.”
Shankar justifies, “One of the things I’ve learned from wrestling is you have to keep reinventing yourself. Like when Chris Jericho dropped the long hair and became a riff on Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. There’s evolution. What I’m trying to convey is that I am a generational f—–g talent. I am the guy that can save Hollywood.”
The 40-year-old filmmaker’s love of wrestling also stemmed from how a chance meeting with Sabu encouraged him to avoid a dull career. “My parents were like, ‘You need to go into finance. I was interviewing at Citibank. I was in a suit. I’m in JFK waiting for my flight to Chicago.” It was here that Shankar met Sabu.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, you’re Sabu.’ He’s like, ‘Who are you? Are you a narc?’ He didn’t know if I was real or not. [Sabu says] ‘Come with me!’ I follow him around. That made me realize I’m not going to do finance. I’m around other business types in business suits, and Sabu was more interesting,” Shankar reminisced.
“That made me realize I’m not going to do finance. I’m around other business types in business suits, and Sabu was more interesting.” Shankar would go on to point to the sky, like Sabu, during his appearance at WWE.
As for the interview proper, Shankar once again told the story of how he initially pitched to work on Dino Crisis before Capcom, the development and production of Devil May Cry, and how the show handled its political allegories. Francisco then probes, “So much of your work deals with traumatic childhoods. You’ve mentioned before that you had a difficult upbringing.”
“There is a narrative throughline about the manipulation of the youth,” Shankar begins. “So much of what I do is about propaganda. My family kept moving to different countries, different societies with different values and languages. You get no cultural stability. There are no fixed points.”
“When you’re moving around as your mind is forming, nothing meant anything. What was ‘cool’ was shifting. ‘Cool’ was a construct that was malleable depending on where you were. Even the history books were different. You learn about the American Revolution here – it’s not considered the American Revolution in a British school. It’s an American revolt,” Shankar claims.
This answer on how different cultures have different ideals of “cool” may have led Francisco to his next point. “What is your grand plan for the Bootleg Universe? What is missing in animation that you’re trying to fill with it?” While Shankar didn’t address his short-fan film universe, he did reveal his overarching plan.
“I’m trying to make animation cool in the way hip-hop became cool,” Shankar explained. “The way Kanye changed fashion. The way Virgil Abloh changed luxury. I don’t think it’s definable. Hyper-commercialism—things designed to sell toys—that’s Western animation. Hanna-Barbera is cute, but it’s not cool. Anime is cool.”
“I watched this transition happen, where it was geeky, and all of a sudden, Travis Scott is talking about Dragon Ball. I’m trying to do that for America. Why is Japanese animation cool? Why is an NFL athlete doing a Dragon Ball dance? Where’s the American influence? American animation is stuck in Kidland,” Shankar claimed.
“Devil May Cry is not anime. It’s in the lineage of X-Men, Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, and UltraForce. I grew up on action-heavy Saturday cartoons. American Saturday morning cartoons were f–g sick. I didn’t even live in America, and I watched them! They made me want to be here,” Shankar gushed.
While several of the aforementioned cartoons were (in part) outsourced to Japan and other countries, this doesn’t undercut Shankar’s point about the shows’ writing.
“But they were boxed in by broadcast standards, and I wondered what these stories would become if they weren’t held back,” Shankar mused. “That’s the space I’m building. Carry forward the language of the era and elevate it for an audience grown up but still craves that style and energy.”
“I’m not chasing the grammar of anime. I’m building something new rooted in American action storytelling. This genre needs a name, because it’s not anime. It’s something that lives between Saturday morning cartoons, prestige television, and R-rated cinema,” Shankar proposed
Francisco echoed the point. “Many Americans see animation and think of it as a kids’ thing. They never think of someone like [arthouse animator] Don Hertzfeldt.” Shankar agreed.
“It’s arthouse. Miyazaki does cross over [with adults and children], but to an American, that’s still arthouse. The audience going ‘Woah!’ with Cody Rhodes is not watching Spirited Away,” Shankar quips.
“There’s a broadness [that] animation needs to be cool,” Shankar theorizes. “Like nu metal. When nu metal was the coolest thing, the hits are what made it. They took nu metal but distilled it into a poppy frame so everyday people were like, ‘I’m into this.’ Korn’s ‘Freak on a Leash‘ becomes a Trojan horse for normal people to get into Deftones and Tool.”
“American animation doesn’t have that. You have people stuck in Hanna-Barberaland. It’s cool to me, but it’s not cool to the NFL player pretending to be Goku. They’re not going ‘Yabba Dabba-doo!’ It’s not fucking happening. That’s my influence. I’m making American animation f–g cool,” Shankar declares. “That’s what I’m doing.”
Shankar concludes the interview with his plans for the second season of Devil May Cry. “Season 1 had to be the gateway drug, but season 2, the storytelling is going to pivot. Season 2 is going to be different, stylistically and tonally, from season 1. Virgil is a big, very important character. It’s essentially a new show,” Shankar promises.
“I have goals. I want to body Arcane, surpass it in viewership… Arcane is the Joker lighting cash on fire, and it’s great. With season 2 of Devil May Cry, I want to beat that. Show up to a tank fight with a water balloon and destroy the tank,” Shankar elaborates. “Because that’s cool.”
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