Castlevania Season 2 has producer Adi Shankar talking up a storm about the upcoming adventures of Trevor Belmont, Alucard, and Sypha Belnades. Netflix has already confirmed that the Castlevania Season 2 release date will be coming in 2018, and this time audiences will be treated to eight episodes, doubling the story length. The real question is, will fans of the video game get to see the pirate character, Grant DaNasty?
When speaking to Nintendo Life, Shankar says the "show was made by fans for fans." He certainly didn't want to mangle his own childhood by creating yet another bad video game-to-film adaptation. Unfortunately, when film makers say something was made "for the fans" that's often a deflection against criticism, but in this case he really means it.
"It's like, no, [they] didn't make it for the fans. The fans are the ones who say they didn't like the movie," the producer told Inverse in a separate interview. "This was made for people who like games. This show was a love letter to this game."
The producer says he quit the film industry in Hollywood because the major studios, excluding Marvel, were not respecting the wishes of the fans. Shankar believes storytellers should "preserve our fandom culture" instead of assuming the fans are a pre-existing audience that will show up on a movie's opening day regardless of the quality of the work. The producer admits he hyped Castlevania and made many promises, but he feels the "general consensus is, 'Oh wow, he wasn't just blowing smoke up everyone's asses. It was legit.'"
The first four episodes acted as a prologue since audiences get to see a different side of Vlad Dracula Tepes, a villain who casts his wrath on eastern Europe only because his wife Lisa was murdered by humanity. Shankar felt that introducing Dracula way before Trevor Belmont enters the scene was an important element to the storytelling.
"Your story is only as good as your villain. We live in a world that isn't black and white," Shankar explained. "The show exists in a world that isn't black and white. So, to have started with Dracula as this 'monster' would have been a disservice to not only his character, but to this entire mythology."
The number of Castlevania Season 2 episodes was originally slated to be only four episodes, but Shankar won't say whether eight episodes means the second season will include both the second and third act. What he did say was that his team is not a fan of "adding time for the sake of adding time," so that probably means no filler episodes.
Unfortunately, Adi Shankar would not confirm whether Grant DaNasty will be one of the major Castlevania Season 2 characters.
"I can't spoil it, because it's … I'm getting into major spoiler territory," he said. "You'll just have to wait and see. I can't even get into it, because it will become a thing, yeah."
Grant should only enter the series when Trevor Belmont, Alucard, and Sypha Belnades reach the castle, so it makes sense that the rogue character has not made an appearance yet. Grant was one of four playable characters in the video game Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, but Grant first shows up in a demonic form near Dracula's castle. The Wallachian man had unsuccessfully fought back against Dracula, only to be transformed into a stone demon guarding a clock tower.
