A Kong: Skull Island Anime Is Coming to Netflix From the Studio Behind Castlevania

A Kong: Skull Island Anime Is Coming to Netflix From the Studio Behind Castlevania

So, uh, it seems like it’s a good week to be a very large ape. Hot on the simian heels of the excellent Godzilla Vs. Kong trailer, Netflix has just announced a Skull Island anime series starring the Ape Who Would Be King. Also, an animated Tomb Raider series — based on the games, and not the live-action movie — is going to join it.

Powerhouse Animation is making Skull Island, which is good news in that the Texas-based studio is also behind the very excellent Castlevania animated series. The show will be canonical with Legendary Pictures’ Monsterverse, which could be potentially interesting. Here’s Netflix’s vague summary:

A new chapter in Legendary’s Monsterverse franchise, Skull Island is a thrilling animated adventure series that follows shipwrecked characters desperate to escape the most dangerous place on Earth — a mysterious island home to prehistoric monsters, including the greatest titan of them all, Kong.

I’m very happy they’ve decided to make the series “thrilling”; I think that was a good call. Meanwhile, Tomb Raider doesn’t have an animation studio announced as of yet, but it will be written and produced by Tasha Huo, who’s also written for the upcoming Witcher prequel series Blood Origin, so that’s probably a good thing. The show will star the same rebooted Lara Croft from the recent, highly satisfactory video game trilogy, taking place after those adventures.

The two shows join Legendary’s upcoming Pacific Rim: The Black anime series, due out in 2021. Netflix didn’t mention any release dates for Skull Island or Tomb Raider, but I suspect Kong and Lara won’t be making their animated debuts until 2022.