Terry Matalas, the showrunner of Marvel Television's VisionQuest and the final seasons of Star Trek: Picard, has his next project officially titled. Netflix has revealed the first look at Planeswalker, an animated series based on Magic: The Gathering that will debut in 2027, with the pyromancer Chandra Nalaar as its lead. Netflix posted the footage earlier today at 12:00 PM MST, then shared the series' premise 5 minutes later. Check out the official post down below:
The series comes from Netflix in partnership with Hasbro Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast. Cindy Appel, who wrote on Picard and VisionQuest, is co-showrunner, and Oscar winner Patrick Osborne (Feast) is supervising director, with DIGIC Pictures handling the animation.
Matalas On Adapting Thousands Of Cards
Matalas told Netflix, "We have the ability to bring these characters to life in ways that the audience hasn't seen before. It's really exciting." He said each card in the game "is a window into this incredible world" and described the adaptation as "worlds-building." Appel added, "It is such a vast world. What we have to go off of are thousands of cards."
In Netflix's behind-the-scenes sneak peek, the team says each plane in the show has "their own pocket universe that comes with culture, design language, architecture," and that it is "making the filmmaking style different, depending on where it is." Netflix's sneak peek is below:
The official synopsis describes "an epic fantasy saga from the world of Magic: The Gathering" in which Chandra, "hunted for her gifts, and haunted by her past," joins other well-known Planeswalkers against "an insidious force." They face dangerous alliances and their own inner demons while trying to stop a war, and the synopsis ends with, "a single spark determines the fate of thousands of worlds." Wizards of the Coast's MagicCon Atlanta preview panel today also showed concept art and storyboard animation of Chandra alongside the leonin Planeswalker Ajani Goldmane.
Matalas co-created and ran Syfy's 12 Monkeys for 4 seasons, ran the 2nd and 3rd seasons of Picard on Paramount+, and wrote the Star Trek: The Next Generation comic miniseries Hive for IDW Publishing in 2012. Daisy May West (The Twits, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight) is producing, Gabriel Marano is an executive producer, and Lauren Chavez-Myers is co-executive producer for Hasbro Entertainment.
Chandra On The Page
Chandra is a fire mage from the plane of Kaladesh, later renamed Avishkar, and she debuted as one of the 5 original planeswalker cards in the Lorwyn set in 2007. She has also led her own comic. For Magic's 25th anniversary in 2018, IDW published a 4-issue Chandra miniseries, and the 2016 Kaladesh card set took the story to her home world, where she found her mother, who had been presumed dead.
Magic's Long Road To The Screen
Hollywood has tried to adapt Magic: The Gathering for more than a decade. 20th Century Fox acquired film rights in 2014 with Simon Kinberg producing and hired Bryan Cogman to write the script, but the project was cancelled in 2019 after Disney bought Fox's film assets.
The Netflix series first came together in June 2019 with Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo attached, as covered in MAGIC: THE GATHERING Animated Series From AVENGERS: ENDGAME Directors In The Works At Netflix. Brandon Routh was cast as the voice of Gideon Jura in 2021, but the Russos and writers Henry Gilroy and Jose Molina left, and Netflix restarted the show with Matalas in September 2024.
A live-action version is also in the works. Hasbro and Legendary Entertainment announced a live-action film and television partnership for Magic in February 2025, with Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald writing the film and Matt Johnson directing. Maya Hawke joined the cast this month, as covered in Magic: The Gathering: Maya Hawke Joins Legendary & Hasbro's Live-Action Movie In Key Role.
Which Magic: The Gathering adaptation are you more interested in, Netflix's animated Planeswalker or Legendary's live-action movie?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.