CASTLEVANIA Producer Adi Shankar Acquires DUKE NUKEM Rights, Promises No-Nonsense Adaptation — GeekTyrant

Geek Tyrant

16 hours ago

After turning Castlevania into one of Netflix's most acclaimed animated series and landing a second season for his upcoming Devil May Cry adaptation, renegade producer Adi Shankar has now set his sights on another iconic piece of gaming history with Duke Nukem .
In a recent interview with Esquire, Shankar casually dropped the news. 'I bought the rights to Duke Nukem . Not the gaming rights, but I bought it from Gearbox.' No big studio fanfare, no corporate announcement—just classic Shankar style.
Of course, Duke Nukem has had a rough ride trying to leap into Hollywood. Several failed attempts have been made over the years, but Shankar thinks he knows why it never worked, and why it will now.
'Duke Nukem can't be made by a corporation because the moment a corporation makes Duke Nukem, it's no longer Duke Nukem. I don't intend on having anyone tell me what to do on this one.'
That kind of creative independence is what's made Shankar's work stand out. He doesn't aim to sanitize or rebrand Duke. He wants to embrace the chaos of it:
'It's a middle finger to everybody. When Duke Nukem blew up, a bunch of people sat around trying to turn it into a brand, when it's just a middle finger.'
A bombastic, politically incorrect anti-hero paired with a filmmaker who thrives on subverting expectations. With Shankar at the helm under his Bootleg Universe banner, it sounds like we'll be getting something that doesn't pull punches or cater to safe studio notes.
His has a passion for pushing boundaries in adult animation. Beyond Castlevania and Devil May Cry , Shankar's fingerprints are on Netflix's The Guardians of Justice (Will Save You!) and Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix . What ties all of these projects together is a commitment to reclaiming American animation's wild side.
'I grew up on action-heavy Saturday cartoons. American Saturday morning cartoons were f—ing sick. I didn't even live in America and I watched them!
'They made me want to be here. But they were boxed in by broadcast standards, and I wondered what these stories would become if they weren't held back.'
Now, he's answering that question himself, describing his creative mission as '[building] something new rooted in American action storytelling.' He adds:
'This genre needs a name, because it's not anime. It's something that lives between Saturday morning cartoons, prestige television, and R-rated cinema.'
Whatever name that genre eventually earns, there's no doubt who's leading the charge. With Duke Nukem locked and loaded in his arsenal, Shankar's universe just got a little more unhinged, and I'm excited to see what he does with this.
There was a Duke Nukem movie that was announced three years ago from Legendary Entertainment and the the Cobra Kai series team, Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, but I guess that's not happening anymore?