Genndy Tartakovsky is the creator of hit Cartoon Network and Adult Swim animation series like Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars and Primal. He was also an important crew member on The Powerpuff Girls. With a CV like that, you might think he would find it easy to get studios to commit to his projects, but it seems not.
Genndy's resorted to leaking test footage from a movie called The Black Knight to try to prove to Sony Animations that there's an audience for it. And the tactic seems to be working, as thousands of fans praised the footage and call for Sony to make the movie (see our pick of the best animation software and the best laptops for animation if you're looking to make your own project, with or without anyone else's backing).
”This might get me in trouble….But gotta try a new strategy,” Genndy wrote on a post on Instagram on Friday as he threw caution to the wind and leaked the animation test from his own movie.
All he said about the premise of The Black Knight is that it's a “more adult animated action movie” about a knight who controls a 20-foot high suit of armour using ropes, pulleys and levers some time in around the 14th century.
And Sony's unsure if that would sell? What are they smoking? But then this a company that made the disastrous Emoji Movie and yet turned down KPop Demon Hunters, which went on to become a massive hit for Netflix.
In less than a day, around 37,000 people have 'liked' Genndy's original post on Instagram, while almost 2,500 peopled have commented, calling on Sony to make the movie. Fans of Genndy's work also began sharing the animation footage on other platforms, resulting in similarly enthusiastic responses.
“Here's a clip of the most rad fucking thing ever. Corpos in suits are so out of touch they dont know how rad it is so they might not let it be made,” one person wrote on X. “If Sony doesn’t think there’s an audience for a Genndy film, maybe they’ve forgotten who made Primal and Samurai Jack cult classics,” another person suggested.
A movie about a massive medieval mech suit might sound hard to sell, but the success of KPop Demon Hunters makes me think that the animation style alone could intrigue an audience beyond those people who are already familiar with Genndy.
Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans' series about a demon-slaying KPop band has become Netflix's most-streamed show ever internationally, proving that there's an appetite for adult animation and for a different animation style beyond the 3D realism style that's become so typical of movie releases.
Genndy has worked with Sony Animations before on Hotel Transylvania and Fixed. He admits in his post that his intention is to try to build a "ground swell of excitement" to change the studio's mind about The Black Knight.
It seems a shame such a well-known animator has to preempt official marketing to try to convince a studio to make a film, but he's certainly demonstrated the enthusiasm of his fan base. Now it's over to you, Sony.
