Paramount’s Halo TV series had almost nothing in common with the games; it was as if the writers saw the cover art of Halo and guessed what the game might be — it’s generic military sci-fi action. HBO’s The Last of Us was more faithful, but it made some radical changes in its second season that ruined the impact of the games’ biggest twists and turns (like revealing who Abby is right off the bat).
According to a 2017 interview with Paste, when Frederator Studio first reached out to creator Warren Ellis about doing an animated Castlevania adaptation, he’d never even heard of the franchise. But when he got a feel for the vibe of the games, it inspired him to go in a completely different direction and create his own version of Castlevania entirely — and the risk paid off.
Warren Ellis Came Up With His Own Version Of Castlevania
Ellis has a long, storied career incorporating iconic Marvel Comics storylines, beloved video games like Dead Space, and the creation of the Red franchise. He was first contacted about adapting Castlevania for animation a full decade before the show finally arrived on Netflix. He’d never heard of Castlevania, but he was instantly smitten with the property.
Castlevania is a series of action-adventure video games with a gothic horror edge. The games largely take place inside the castle of Count Dracula, the sworn enemy of the Belmont clan of vampire slayers. When Ellis got his hands on the games, he found them to be a “Japanese transposition” of the classic Hammer Horror movies he’d grown up watching and loving.
The Hammer films were a series of gorgeous gothic horror films utilizing old-school sets and practical monster makeup for vibrant, colorful retellings of Dracula, Frankenstein, and other spooky stories. Ellis felt that a Castlevania cartoon was an excuse to do his own Hammer Horror homage, so it ended up being very different from the games it was based on.
This is usually a recipe for disaster, but Ellis’ Castlevania series ended up being great in its own way. It’s not like the games, but it is a deeply engrossing horror show. Netflix is notorious for canceling its original shows, but Castlevania proved to be so successful that the streamer kept it on the air for four seasons, with a total of 32 episodes.
Netflix’s Animated Series Launched A Whole New Castlevania Universe
Netflix’s Castlevania cartoon proved to be so popular with audiences that it ended up launching its own Castlevania universe. The games have their own lore and continuity, making up the mainline Castlevania universe, but Netflix has created its own separate Castlevania universe, with its own lore and its own continuity (and its own medium).
Castlevania ended its four-season run in 2021, but the franchise came back in 2023 with a follow-up series, Castlevania: Nocturne. This spinoff followed Richter Belmont, a descendant of the Belmont clan, during the French Revolution. It takes place in the Castlevania universe that Ellis had created for the first show, and expands it even more.
It’s extremely rare that audiences are satisfied by an unfaithful adaptation, but it can happen. If the adapting party has a vision that’s just as unique and distinctive as the one in the source material, then they can create something different but just as great, like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or, indeed, Netflix’s Castlevania universe.
Source: Paste