Yesterday, Netflix released Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, an animated feature that concludes Guillermo del Toro's Tales of Arcadia franchise. Three series led up to the Avengers-style crossover, including Wizards, 3-Below, and, of course, Trollhunters.
Writing alongside Del Toro on the trilogy of shows and Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans is Marc Guggenheim, one of the masterminds behind the Arrowverse and its many tendrils. On the CW, Guggenheim brought together Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, and Batwoman into an incredibly ambitious crossover event called Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Using his experience with big series and crossovers, Marc had a major impact on how the franchise was built. We asked him about when and how the film was initially written and the production process, and he told us that Wizards and Rise of the Titans were contemporaneous, citing Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Generations as a reference point.
Marc Guggenheim: My recollection was that we started Wizards contemporaneous with our discussions about the movie. So for a good long time, at least from a writing perspective, we were proceeding along parallel tracks. It's funny; it's a little bit like the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the movie Star Trek: Generations. From a production standpoint, we basically finished Wizards and rolled straight into the production of the movie, but in order to achieve that, we had to be writing the movie while Wizards was being produced.
I gotta tell you, the story development process for the movie was really very lengthy, and the finished product bears little resemblance to the story we were originally contemplating. And between those extremes, there were a lot of different iterations. Pretty much everything got discussed, and a lot of things got bandied about. There are a million and one ideas and sequences that were discussed and in some cases even written, dropped, changed; you name it. So it was a very fluid process because we really wanted to make sure we were telling the right story. I think in order to do that, you've got to go down a lot of blind alleys and stress test various different story ideas and story points to arrive at, hopefully, the best version of the story.
Watch the full video interview for yourself to hear us talk more about Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, Legends of Tomorrow, Green Lantern, and more.
Marc Guggenheim is back, this time to promote his upcoming film Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans. The new movie is a culmination of three DreamWorks Netflix series, Wizards, Trollhunters, and 3-Below in an Avengers-style crossover event.
While chatting with Marc, we obviously had to dig into his Legends of Tomorrow work, and we learned a lot about how the show is structured, ideas that don't always make it in the show at first, and most importantly, the upcoming Beebo Christmas Special.
We also get the opportunity to talk about the new Green Lantern series on HBO Max that Marc is handling, and he explained how grateful he is to get another crack at the Emerald Knight after his film with Ryan Reynolds didn't end up how he planned.
What do you guys think about these comments from Marc? Can you see the resemblance to Star Trek: The Last Generation from a production standpoint?
Be sure to tune into Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans on Netflix, and if you haven't yet, check out a clip from the new film below. Don't forget to share your thoughts in the usual spot!
Our heroes end up in a sticky situation as they race to take down the Fire Titan! But will the combination of magic and might be enough to save the world?
Trollhunters: Rise Of The Titans is now streaming on Netflix!