“We’re not a reboot, we’re not a retelling”: X-Men ‘97 Director Sets the Record Straight About Show’s True Essence With 1 Feature That Seals the Deal
Debuting on March, 20 March 2024, X-Men ‘97 is sure to deliver a serious nostalgia rush. The direct follow-up of the popular 90s animated series X-Men: The Animated Series has created a buzz ever since its production was announced in November 2021. With its first season premiered in October 1992, the animated series came to a stop in September 1997, after completing a successful run of five seasons.
During the promotion of the upcoming series, showrunner Jake Castorena spoke about the true essence behind the upcoming animated series, X-Men ’97.
X-Men ‘97 Director Jake Castorena Believes They Are Reviving And Not Rebooting The Popular Series
American animator and filmmaker Jake Castorena is the brain behind the much-awaited X-Men ’97 series. As the head director and supervising producer, Castorena shared an important update about X-Men ’97 during an interview with Radio Times.com. Jake Castorena mentioned that the theme song and the title of the series were never in doubt. The Batman: Unlimited showrunner said-
“If we’re going to do something that [means] we’re in a sandbox, there’s automatically certain things that we should do, verbatim, that should just be in the DNA of our show from day one – and yes, the theme and the main titles were never in doubt.”
While talking about how X-Men ’97 is the perfect successor X-Men: The Animated Series deserved, Castorena said-
“At the end of the day, we are a spiritual successor – we are a revival. I can tout this until I’m blue in the face – we’re not a reboot, we’re not a retelling… the goal is to be able to watch the OG show and go right into ours… or start with our show and go right into the OG show.”
While explaining the logic behind trying to bring back everyone together, Jake Castorena said–
“For those who wanted to come back and for whatever reasons weren’t able to do the voice, we brought them back to play other characters, to make sure we still had everybody in the sandbox. Honestly, it’s a way to get everybody back. It’s the best way to get everybody back, as best as we could.”
With the addition of new faces on board and in an attempt to maintain the original essence of the show, Castorena believes in blending newness and originality with respect to X-Men ’97.
X-Men ’97 Executive Producer Brad Winderbaum Talks About The Creative Challenges Of Developing The Series After Decades
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, X-Men ’97’s executive producer Brad Winderbraun shared about the creative challenge that came along with the development of the series after a gap of over two decades. Winderbaum explained that the revival of the show came along with honoring the legacy of the widely watched X-Men: The Animated Series. He said-
The creative challenge of this show is in not just reviving but emulating and honoring a show that was made 30 years ago. So, using all of our creative strength through this amazing array of artists and animators — and even the voice talent and the music and everyone that has touched the show — our guiding principle is trying to emulate our memory of it.
He further mentioned-
So that’s one of the reasons why we brought in [X-Men: The Animated Series showrunners] Eric and Julia Lewald and [X-Men: The Animated Series producer/director] Larry Houston. We worked so closely with them throughout the process so that they could, in a way, train us on how they made the original show and what their limitations were.
While comparing the X-Men: The Animated Series with the upcoming show, Brad Winderbaum
They made their show much faster on a budget. They had to hit that Fox Kids timetable, and they were still telling these amazing character-driven stories. So we had to create artificial parameters for ourselves. It’s kind of like a code of ethics that we could follow so that we had rules that we wouldn’t break.
Even after a gap of 27 years, actors including Cal Dodd, Alison Sealy-Smith, George Buza, and Lenore Zann are back to breathe life into the characters of Wolverine, Storm, Beast, and Rogue respectively. X-Men ’97 premieres on March 20 on Disney+
