Back in February, Netflix confirmed that it will bring the long-awaitedCastlevania animated seriesto the streaming service at some point this year. Today we not only have the first trailer for this highly-anticipated series, Netflix has also announced that it will debut Friday, July 7. For fans of the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game, this trailer will bring back some fond memories, while teasing what an 8-bit Netflix display might look like.
TheNetflixstreaming service debuted this trailer on YouTube today, which opens with an actualCastlevaniaNES video game cartridge, resting atop an old NES console system. After the player loads this cartridge into the NES console (after the customary cartridge blow), we see a Netflix 8-bit display, which features a few different options such asHouse of Cards,Narcos,Orange is the New BlackandStranger Things, before the player selectsCastlevaniaand plays the trailer. While the footage even starts out as an 8-bit video, it quickly switches over to the high-definition footage, giving fans their first look at thisNetflix animated series.
Inspired by the classic video game series, Castlevania is a dark medieval fantasy following the last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself. The animated series is from Frederator Studios, a Wow! Unlimited Media company, written by best-selling author and comic book icon Warren Ellis and executive produced by Warren Ellis, Kevin Kolde, Fred Seibert andAdi Shankar. After the project was first announced, Adi Shankar teased that he wants to bring “hard-hitting anime” to the U.S., claiming this show will be, “America’s first animated series for adults.”
Many fans also figured out thatAdventure TimeproducerFred Seibertwas working on this project, before he was officially announced. Fred Seibert teased that he was working on a project based on one of the most popular video games of the last 30 years, which many assumed wasCastlevania, especially when it was revealed that his Frederator Studios company has owned the rights to theCastlevaniavideo game franchise for years, but he hasn’t been able to do anything with it until just recently. No voice cast members have been confirmed yet, but that should change soon, with the release just over a month away.
Producer Adi Shankar confirmed back in 2015 that this series will be based on the video game Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, which centered on Trevor Belmont, who wielded his family’s legendary whip that kills vampires. There were also three new characters introduced in that game, a sorceress named Sypha Belnades, the pirate Grant Danasty, and Alucard, the son of Dracula who could shoot fireballs and turn into a bat. We don’t get much from this trailer, and while it’s possible that this main character could be Trevor Belmont, it could very well be another member of the Belmont clan. The firstCastlevania poster, released back in February, gave us our first look at Dracula’s castle. While we wait for more details, take a look at the firstCastlevaniatrailer below.
