It has been confirmed that New York Times bestselling graphic novel series The Witch Boy will be Netflix’s latest project, moving forward as an animated musical full-length feature film.
Written by Molly Knox Osterag (who also happens to be married to Noelle Stevenson, a cartoonist and creator of Netflix’s original animated series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), the series follows a magical world where girls are raised to be witches and boys are raised to be shapeshifters. The series focuses on Aster, a thirteen year old boy who wishes to practice magic through discovering his witch powers instead of shapeshifting, as well as embarking on a personal journey and great adventure against a mysterious evil.
Netflix released concept art, showing a beautiful aesthetic of what we may expect to see!
The feature film will be directed by Minkyu Lee, who also directed Oscar-nominated short animated film Adam and Dog in 2011.
According to Deadline, Lee stated that “it has been a life-long dream of mine to create an animated film that pushes the medium forward, both in content and form. The connection between this dream, my experiences…I am grateful to be creating this with the wonderful team at Netflix. My hope is that this film, by celebrating queerness and “otherness”, will come to audiences around the world as something truly special.”
The Witch Boy will also feature original music by the Grammy-nominated sister trio Haim. American Gods’ screenwriter Maria Melnik writes the script with Roy Lee, Miri Yoon and Ryan Harris producing. Vertigo Entertainment will also co-produce the feature. There is no release date yet, but this is a project that will hold a lot of anticipation and create a lot of buzz, in both the film community and the queer community.
The Witch Boy could become a milestone in diversity and non-conformity that we see in animated films and television, with the previously mentioned She-Ra and the Princesses of Power also proving in 2020 that Netflix were willing to take the leap in animated children’s content having queer themes (with the protagonist/titular character being confirmed as queer in the finale.)
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