Who says animation is only for children? Indian-born American filmmaker and showrunner Adi Shankar defies the odds by going against the grain. As the sequel to Devil May Cry prepares to stream on Netflix from May 12, the producer, who moved from independent Hollywood films to adult animation, tells mid-day that with language and cultural barriers dwindling and people eager to lap up worldwide content, the territorial gatekeeping some studios have had is crumbling.
“Netflix and YouTube built a global marketplace for media. It’s pulling cultures closer together faster. They can give your work global distribution and marketing support on day one,” says Shankar, adding that if the story is strong, it can find its audience anywhere. “These platforms connect the world, and when something hits, it hits everywhere,” he adds.
Adi Shankar
He notes that major studio systems were and some still are Intellectual Property [IP]-driven like [Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Terminator, etc]. It’s easy to get locked out of the playing field if one doesn’t have access to top-tier IP. To create value for himself, he made six unauthorised fan films [Bootleg Universe] on YouTube. “I was doing it to be rebellious, but it proved that I could handle iconic IPs at a level that it felt like a reinvention, not a photocopy,” he asserts. With the popularity of his shorts, the dynamic is flipping. Now IP holders are coming to him to reinvent and reimagine their properties.
He reasons that most game-to-animated series adaptations fail during development, not in execution. The problem, he says is, “A lot of adaptations are treated like assignments, where a committee starts shaping it before anyone has a singular point of view. The result is something that’s faithful on the surface with names, lore, easter eggs, but [is actually] spiritually hollow. The real [need] is [to have an] authorship that can execute.”
Shankar was thrilled to be “embraced by the industry pretty quickly”. But insecurities grew as the discourse around the label of diversity intensified. “I became conscious of being labelled an ‘outsider’ once diversity conversations became a constant topic around 2016,” he explains. It was over a dinner with Ryan Reynolds when the actor said that the Indian accent, an insecurity he carried, was “sexy”, that Shankar’s mind got rewired. “I had internalised this idea that Americans heard it as ‘dorky’. In that moment, [I realised] how much of this ‘outsider-ness’ is projection.”
Adi Shankar’s animation work
2017 ‘Castlevania’
2022 ‘The Guardians of Justice’
2023 ‘Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix’
2023 ‘Castlevania: Nocturne’
2025 ‘Devil May Cry’
What is ‘Devil May Cry’ all about?
The adult animated urban fantasy follows Dante, a wisecracking, orphaned demon hunter for hire, who gets caught in a demonic invasion of Earth, orchestrated by the terrorist White Rabbit, while also navigating conflicts with the government organisation, Darkcom
Did you know?
Adi Shankar was the executive producer on ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ (2012)
