Netflix Boards New Nautical Animated Comedy From 'Norsemen' Duo
Netflix continues to invest heavily in animation of all kinds, for both family and adult audiences. Although the company is notoriously cagey about numbers, it seems that animation is proving to be some of their most popular content. Among the animated content they have commissioned, several have come from creators like Bill Burr (F Is For Family) and Nick Kroll (Big Mouth) who previously had no real background in animation. We can now add to that list Norway's Jon Iver Helgaker and Jonas Torgersen, creators of Viking comedy Norsemen.
Helgaker and Torgersen will serve as creators and showrunners on new adult animated comedy Captain Fall. The series will focus on Jonathan Fall, a "naive warm-hearted ship's captain" who unwittingly finds himself at the helm of a smuggling ship. Joel Trussell (Electric City, Pickle and Peanut ) will serve as executive producer.
The story behind this commission is intriguing and could have some exciting implications for the future of original programming at Netflix. It seems that Helgaker and Torgensen were not originally planning for the series to be animated at all. It seems that part was Netflix's idea.
The duo explains:
We are thrilled to set out on this new adventure with Netflix. We first pitched Captain Fall as a live action show, but Netflix saw the potential of it being animated. Although a bit scary in the beginning, moving from live action to animation just feels amazingly limitless and creative on a whole new level. And luckily Netflix has surrounded us with a groups of extremely talented people, so everything is set up for us not screwing this one up. But you never know.
The vast majority of animation is conceived as an animated project from the word go. Netflix is setting a potentially game-changing precedent here. If creators make pitches of ideas and they are matched with the medium they might work best for, we could see a much wider variety of stories being told in animation, and by a wider range of talent. And that would most assuredly be a good thing.
Netflix has ordered 20 episodes of Captain Fall, that will be released in two separate parts. Mike Moon, Netflix's head of adult animation says "Jon Iver and Jonas created a hilarious story in Norsemen that connected with audiences all around the world. We can’t wait for fans to see their absurd fantastical genius come to life in their first animated series."
