After crushing it with Castlevania (I just rewatched it, and it is even better the second time), Netflix might be taking another swing at the animated videogame genre with a new Diablo series. If this happens, we might actually have two videogame properties that will be on-screen and not terrible for the first time in history, and I think this is possible mainly because Andrew Cosby is doing the script writing. Yeah, the same writer penning the new Hellboy flick. Hellboy writer, Diablo show. Let that sink in.
Now, I am tentatively (read: extremely) excited for the new Hellboy, as I am a big fan of the character. I thought Guillermo Del Toro's films were fine, but the world was a bit too colorful for my taste, and the stories they told weren't my favorite. Here's hoping that the new one is the film I've been waiting for. Cosby has done a lot of comic book work, which makes sense, given that he founded BOOM! studios, and he's worked on some comic book adaptations before, although most are screen to comic, instead of the other way around. Diablo seems like it wouldn't be too tough to adapt, since the story is so wide open; all you really have to do is have a warrior (or group of warriors) trying to kill the devil, and everything else is pretty much up for grabs. I mean, here is the basic synopsis:
Set in the fictional Kingdom of Khanduras, players take control of a lone hero battling to rid the world of Diablo, the Lord of Terror. Beneath the town of Tristram, the player journeys through sixteen randomly generated dungeon levels, ultimately entering Hell itself in order to face Diablo.
So whatever they'd like to do in terms of the protagonist, be it an elf, a sorcerer, woman, man, dwarf, whatever, you could feasibly do it without pissing off a huge chunk of the fan-base. There are plenty of locations and monsters to choose from, and you could really go wild with satanic imagery and sacrifices and what have you. The more demonic the better, really.
So far, this news hasn't been confirmed (we don't even know for sure if the hypothetical show will be animated), but I expect it to this week some time. In the meantime, I might just go see if I have the game lying around somewhere...
