Animation has steadily become an important factor in the effort to convince audiences to purchase subscriptions to streaming services. Now, Apple TV Plus is taking another big step into animation with Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon and author Nathan Pyle bringing the comic strip Strange Planet to the streamer as an animated series.
AppleTV Plus was a later addition to the streaming wars and offers its service for a significantly smaller monthly charge, so the quantity of content on the platform pales in comparison to services like Netflix. But animation has been a significant part of the streamer's strategy, as AppleTV Plus offers hot ticket items like The Snoopy Show and Central Park (which has been greenlit for a third season). The streamer also made an inspired choice in purchasing the exclusive streaming rights to Wolfwalkers, the highly-acclaimed fourth feature film by Irish studio Cartoon Saloon.
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Now, Strange Planet will be the latest addition to AppleTV Plus' sparse but notable resume of animated titles. The comic strip by Pyle follows blue aliens on a planet similar to Earth, where they have interactions and processes that match our human lifestyle (albeit with their own comically butchered terminology—to them, a "hug" is a "mutual limb exposure"). Pyle's popular comics are regularly posted online and have been compiled into two books so far.
Apple Studios will produce the series with ShadowMachine, the studio production house behind Bojack Horsemen, working on the series as well. Harmon and Pyle are the executive producers, with Over the Garden Wall writer Amalia Levari to serve as the series showrunner. Apple has given the project a straight-to-series order, meaning that episodes are likely to start being released in late 2022 or 2023 at the earliest.
Across the board, the most well-known services have been presenting viewers with engaging animated series and content. Netflix has made animation a pillar of the service with series like Castlevania and its upcoming spinoff, Hilda, and Green Eggs and Ham, while Amazon has released their own animated killer apps such as Invincible, and Disney Plus has offered two Pixar films, Soul and Luca, free of charge to subscribers.
Strange Planet is an acerbic and heartfelt series with the potential to become a 2020s equivalent to beloved strips like Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. Community creator Harmon is the perfect choice to adapt the comic strip, and once the series is ready for release, fans of Rick and Morty and animated shows, in general, will undoubtedly find something to appreciate from Pyle's lovable aliens.
Strange Planet is currently in development.
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Source: Deadline