Adi Shankar on Season 2 of 'Devil May Cry,' His Beef With Joe Russo, and Why H'wood Should Vote for Spencer Pratt

Happy Wednesday, folks!

In recent days, I’ve watched a pair of documentaries about Lorne Michaels and Martin Short, and while I enjoyed both, I found Lawrence Kasdan’s Netflix doc, Marty, Life Is Short, to be far superior to Morgan Neville’s Lorne, which inexplicably received a theatrical release when it probably should’ve debuted on Peacock.

There’s even a brief but revealing shot of Lorne in the Martin Short doc that’s almost more personal than anything in Neville’s doc, which could’ve dug a bit deeper… if its subject actually wanted to open up about his personal life. Whereas the Short family opens up, Lorne’s family is largely kept off-camera, to the detriment of the film.

Speaking of Hollywood legends, I caught up with Dustin Hoffman’s new heist movie Tuner on Monday night as part of AMC’s Screen Unseen series, and I liked it, but I didn’t love it. For starters, Hoffman isn’t in the movie enough, and when he is in the movie, he’s bedridden for most of the running time.

The lead is English actor Leo Woodall, who reminds me of a young Michael Pitt. He’s talented, and this is a solid performance that impressed me. I just felt like the script leaves Woodall stranded, as his character is far too passive, to the point where he’s kind of boring. Believe me, the movie comes to life every second that the menacing Israeli actor Lior Raz is onscreen.

Director Daniel Roher is certainly worth keeping an eye on, and I’m curious to see what he does next, but with a 108-minute running time, give or take, I’m afraid that Tuner drags, and there’s far too much time spent on Havana Rose Liu’s piano playing.

The film needed to be a little bit edgier to have the impact of, say, Emily the Criminal, but it’s too mild to leave a truly lasting impression. I give it 2.5 stars out of 4, as I think it could’ve been better — a frustrating feeling.

Tonight, I have a fascinating interview with Adi Shankar, the creator of the Devil May Cry series on Netflix, who is also responsible for the Castlevania series and the Bootleg Universe featuring Power/Rangers and Mr. Rogers: A War Hero, among other viral shorts.

As with all interviews here at The InSneider, this one is free to read — no paywall tonight. But if you like what I’m doing here, feel free to do the right thing and subscribe for a month or two. Thanks in advance! And now, on with the show…

Adi Shankar on S2 of Devil May Cry, His Beef With Joe Russo, and Why Hollywood Should Vote for Spencer Pratt

The anime series Devil May Cry returned to Netflix this week for its second season, which critics are liking even more than the first, and I was lucky enough to spend roughly an hour chatting with the show’s creator/showrunner, Adi Shankar, about the hot topics being discussed in Hollywood.

Devil May Cry is based on the popular Capcom video game of the same name, and it follows a demon hunter named Dante (Johnny Yong Bosch) as he attempts to foil a demonic invasion of Earth orchestrated by the White Rabbit (Hoon Lee), a demon-obsessed terrorist who seeks revenge on the human race, all while being hunted by human soldier Mary Ann Arkham (Scout Taylor-Compton), who works for the government organization DARKCOM, aka Dark Realm Command.

The first season of Devil May Cry premiered in April 2025, and the show was quickly renewed for a second season, for which Shankar was given more resources — in large part due to the growing popularity of anime around the world.

I’ve known Shankar since my early reporting days at Variety, back when he made a name for himself as the executive producer of films such as Dredd, The Grey, Lone Survivor, and Killing Them Softly.

While I won’t pretend to have watched Devil May Cry, which I made Adi fully aware of before our interview, I wanted to chat with him because he’s an original thinker in a town where original thinking is in short supply.

He’s one of the smartest guys I know, and even though we don’t agree on everything, I have to give him credit for being a straight shooter, as there aren’t many of those in this business.

In any case, I knew Adi would be a fascinating interview, and he didn’t disappoint, especially once he got comfortable.

Below, submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, is my full interview with Shankar, which has been edited only for clarity. Buckle up, especially if your last name is Russo…

How are you doing, man?

Adi Shankar: I’m good. I'm also a little nauseous. I don't know why. I think I'm nervous to talk to you, Jeff.

You shouldn’t be. We go way back. 

Shankar: We go way fucking back. It's crazy. We go so far back that Netflix barely existed then. 

Exactly. That said, forgive me, but I don't watch Devil May Cry, so tell me… why should I watch the show, and what can fans expect from Season 2? 

Shankar: I think you’d like it because it’s very much an auteur-driven, dark fantasy epic that has real authorship. It's the opposite of art-by-committee, by which I mean, the committee-driven, committee-approved, sanitized content that we often get.

Okay, I can dig that. So what can fans of the show expect from Season 2 of Devil May Cry? What are some of the big developments they should keep an eye out for? 

Shankar: It’s hard to explain it if you haven't watched the show…

Well, there will be people who read this because they do watch the show and they’re eager to dive into Season 2. Ideally, that's who we're getting to subscribe — fans of you and the show.

Shankar: This is true. Well, in that case, I think there's just more this time around. I was given more resources, more run time, and obviously, I put that all on the screen — both in terms of visual storytelling, but also in terms of the music. I produce all the music and the show’s soundtrack, and it's a real symphony. Season 1 was a symphony, too, but Season 2 is a symphony that was able to take bigger swings because of the success of Season 1, if that makes sense.

It seems like Season 2 is getting even better reviews than the first season. I'm curious what you think it is that critics are responding to this season.

Shankar: In Season 1, I was leaning into plot, and in Season 2, I'm leaning more into emotion, and I think that makes it more surprising.

Can you tell me about the show's origins, particularly in dealing with Capcom? I know some of these video game companies can be very precious about their IP, so was it you who approached them, or did they approach you after seeing what you'd done with Castlevania? 

Shankar: I can break that down for you. So, we had a meeting years ago, and I happened to be dressed like a character from Devil May Cry, because if you recall, that's how I used to dress. I’m from Hong Kong, and I used to dress very flamboyantly.

So, we were talking about several of their properties, and they were like, ‘Hey, we're very interested in working with you. We like what you do.’ 

The conversation was driven by the series of fan films I made that were unauthorized creative reimaginings and reinterpretations of popular IP. And what happened was that the rights holders, especially in the gaming space, thought these fan films were really cool. 

So, I start all of these conversations with the understanding that I’m looking to creatively reinterpret stuff, just to address this notion of preciousness that you brought up.

Yes, they're very precious, usually, but even if you look at my last show, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, I did that in partnership with Ubisoft. It's basically my shared universe with Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Far Cry, Rayman, and the Raving Rabbids. Prince of Persia’s even in there. Basically, all of Ubisoft’s IP is in there, and I flipped it on its head. 

Like, Rayman is the company's mascot, and I made him a cokehead propaganda artist of a fascist empire that is secretly the villains from Assassin's Creed. All of this was approved by the CEO of Ubisoft, right? And one of the brothers who runs Ubisoft went to every meeting with me to explain to the networks that, ‘Yes, we’re allowing him to do this.’ They normally enter these conversations very precious [about the IP], but with me, they’re actually interested in seeing my spin on it. 

Yeah, you've got some street cred at this point. 

Shankar: I've got street cred, and the street cred is, ‘Adi will creatively reinterpret the thing in an imaginative way.’ I honestly think if I just went in and tried to play it straight, people would be a little confused and shocked at this point.

So, back to Capcom, they actually recommended the property. They were like, ‘Just based on how you're dressed, are you a fan of Devil May Cry?’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah!’

They said, ‘Well, we would love for you to do Devil May Cry,’ and they were hinting that a new game was coming out, but I’m a little thick, so I didn't pick up on those hints.

But we made the deal — I made the deal directly with Capcom, and then brought in Netflix after I developed all of the material for Season 1. The meeting I’m talking about happened in 2017, and then I closed the deal in 2018.

I announced it on IGN in October or November of that year. I wore a bunch of face paint, and I cut a WWE-style promo on IGN, because, as you know, I have a flair for theatrics.

You're a showman. 

Shankar: I'm a showman, yes. I've got this inner Sacha Baron Cohen running around in me.

Well, between your show and the Resident Evil and Street Fighter movies, it certainly seems like a big year for Capcom. 

Shankar: Yeah, it’s a massive year for Capcom. They've got a really cool team over there. 

Obviously, it's a big company. They’re a big gaming corporation in Japan, and they've been around for decades and decades, so their IP roster runs super deep. 

I think there’s a lot of comfort there, and a lot of love, because I’m familiar with not just their greatest hits, but also their deep cuts, so I really respect the IP. At the end of the day, I respect any IP I work on, including Power Rangers. I did Power/Rangers because I was a fan, you know what I mean? 

I remember being a big fan of Capcom’s Mega Man games. Those were my jam.

Shankar: There's a Mega Man easter egg in Season 1, Episode 3 of Devil May Cry. Mega Man is literally in it.

I saw that you're a co-writer on six of the eight episodes this season, so I'm curious, when you first entered this business, did you fancy yourself a writer? How did you work on that skill and improve on that front? 

Shankar: That's a great question. The truth is that no, I didn’t — I was just trying to find a slot, and I didn't really care what the slot was. But I would always write treatments and pitches and whatnot. I just got more involved in the writing process as time went on. That probably started 10 or 11 years ago.

I consider Alex Larsen my writing partner. He wrote Season 1 of Devil May Cry, and we co-wrote Season 2. He also worked on Captain Laserhawk.

I guess you’re asking me if I consider myself a writer, and I suppose I consider myself a generalist who can conduct any part of the process now, having been doing this at a fairly high level for 15 years.

For example, my history as a producer really helped keep costs down on Devil May Cry. And sure, Netflix is footing the bill, but I want to make this cost-effective for them, and profitable for them, so that there gets to be more of this, and other people get the opportunity.

As far as the showmanship stuff goes, I feel like I've gotten better at that and reined that in more, but the truth is that it helps on the marketing side of things.

But I definitely think I got better at writing as time went on. I think it went from being a thing that I do to something that I'm very, very good at now. Not to sound super cocky. I mean, I'm not Jeff Sneider or anything…

Shut the fuck up. Are you in the WGA?

Shankar: No. But I’ve been thinking about the writer thing a lot lately, because it’s not just my writing that’s driving the show. This anime series requires me to wear so many different hats. 

As the showrunner, I’m dealing with action-based shot design and shot selection, and my company, Adi Shankar Animation, will re-edit certain shots and send the animatics back. 

So, as a showrunner in anime, you have to conduct a bigger orchestra. There’s plenty of other stuff to keep in mind besides the writing.

I know anime's been performing really well in movie theaters lately. Have there been any conversations about doing anything with Devil May Cry on the big screen? 

Shankar: No. Or rather, not that I can reveal without [the plug] getting pulled as punishment for revealing something that I… shouldn't be revealing. 

But if the question is, ‘Do I think it could work?’ Yes, I do, because the audience is hyper-engaged. And I think part of the reason that anime is eating Hollywood’s lunch is that anime believes in authorship. It's an auteur-driven industry. It's driven by IP, yeah, like Dragon Ball Z, Gundam, One Piece, and so on. So it is IP, but auteurs run all of that IP, right? 

Anime is made by obsessed people. And that obsession then translates to the fans being obsessed, right? So when you look at, like, why are people showing up to theaters for this? Well, because they're obsessed. And they're going to put their phone down and go through the friction of making it to a movie theater because of that obsession.

Is there any AI involved in the making of Devil May Cry? 

Shankar: No. 

Where do you stand on AI? Is it a tool for good or a tool for evil, or does it just depend on who's using it and for what purpose? 

Shankar: The conversations around it are very funny to me. Because people are either naively utopian, hysterically apocalyptic, or, like, so obviously, blatantly self-interested.

I don't think AI exists yet. We're calling a pattern recognition tool artificial intelligence, but it's not The Terminator, you know? I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet…

And full disclosure, I have an AI company that I co-founded with the head of AI at Dartmouth. And the company is designed to protect artists.

Well, that’s a good thing.

Shankar: Yeah. I don’t think AI is all good or all bad. Artists need a way to fight back against infringement, right? Infringement is infringement. It's not like, ‘Oh, AI is doing it.’ It’s the AI companies that are infringing, and that’s not an AI thing — that's a corporate overreach thing.

And look, I know it's ironic that it's me saying this when I basically started my creative career as a dude bootlegging IP. 

In a way, I think that makes your criticism even more notable.

Shankar: Sure, absolutely.

The Cannes Film Festival gets underway this week, and there's been a lot of talk this year about how Hollywood in general is kind of sitting out the festival, which doesn’t have a lot of Hollywood offerings. Sundance is moving from Utah to Colorado. What do you think is the single biggest problem plaguing film festivals these days? 

Shankar: I think this is just kind of a general problem, not necessarily a film festival problem, but I think the era of the brand manager is ending. Today’s audiences can smell committee-built entertainment now. And there are so many other offerings now, so why would someone engage with something that is run by a brand manager? 

We've both been in the business for a long time, right? My perception of how it works is that during every period or era of Hollywood, the business basically congregates around a certain individual or a certain group of individuals, and says, ‘These will be our stars. This is who the system is going to get behind this go-round.’ Right? And then that person magically turns into a movie star or an A-list director or some visionary auteur or something. But that's how we mint stars in this town, right? Would you agree with that? 

Sure…. 

Shankar: Okay. But then they’re left in the hands of the world's most generic man, Joe Russo [of the Russo brothers], who makes premium mediocre content with a capital fucking C. That’s who was minted by the town and given resources. Joe Russo makes premium mediocre content with a capital fucking C, and that's the problem.

What do you see happening in this industry that makes you go, I wish I'd thought of that? And what do you see happening that just needs to end? 

Shankar: Jesus, that's a great question. Well, first of all, I think in this premium mediocre business model, where billions of dollars were pulled out of the system, creative decision-making just became risk management. And the broader filmmaking ecosystem pays the price because everything that is being produced is an expensive pastiche with zero soul.

That needs to end, but it's already ending, or ended, right? We're kind of in the echo of that right now. But I think that plug just needs to get pulled. I'm not trying to be mean here, but I think my issue here is when I drive around L.A., and I see all these people without a job or without a role, and I see the industry is suffering, it's like, ‘Okay, part of the suffering is because you have individuals who are literally raising billions of dollars to produce shit.’

There's a lot of damage that gets left behind in its wake, and those individuals don't suffer because they get to flex and do whatever the hell it is that they do. It's the next generation and the generation after that suffer, right? 

The massive contraction is a response to the individuals who were given the baton and told, ‘Hey, we believe in you. Go hit a fucking home run.’ And instead they sat at home and put the money in their pocket. 

We're seeing the fallout hit now, and where it always hits hardest is the creative middle class. The working people who built this business start losing their fucking homes, and that's not cool.

So yeah, the string of $200 million committee-written, committee-directed slop projects was a problem, and now, the problem is that we’re living in the aftershock of that, and it’s fucked up. Just look at all the people now who won't get opportunities because of that [greed]. 

But maybe I'm just jealous. Maybe I'm mad that I didn't get on that gravy train. I should’ve made a deal with AGBO and gotten on that fucking gravy train and tried to make a Pac-Man Cinematic Universe, only to lose the rights to fucking Justin Baldoni. Which is dark, man. 

I don’t know how much time you spend in L.A. these days or if you’re paying attention to the Mayoral election, but is there a candidate you feel would be best for the industry? 

Shankar: For the industry? Spencer Pratt, no doubt about it. Because he's from the industry.

That is true, technically.

Shankar: Literally, I don't see any other candidates being from the industry. He's from a different version of the industry, right? One where the industry was... a thriving ecosystem with various types of productions being made on various scales. But he's very much from the industry.

I don't think the current mayor knows very much about how our industry operates, or operated, and could operate again in the future, if we're in alignment. And that's not a knock against anyone. It's just that our business has a very specific history, and it has very specific cycles. 

Have you personally found it difficult to shoot in Los Angeles? 

Shankar: Well, yeah. So, I basically have only done anime, with the rare exception of a couple of things. I've only done anime, and for that, we've essentially developed a global pipeline, right? So, in a lot of ways, you could argue that I'm part of the problem of production leaving. It’s because of the global pipeline that's been created. 

But back in the day, I remember it being hard to shoot in L.A. and there being a lot of roadblocks and difficulties. L.A. is a rough place infrastructurally, right? Like, I live in Dubai some of the time, and that’s where you start to see how much L.A. has fallen.

I think there are a lot of people who really love LA, so they don't want to admit that it's fallen. But they also haven't really left the United States to see how other places have progressed so quickly. I don't want to say L.A. has turned into a third-world city because that's not accurate, but it feels very much like a city on the decline. But I feel like that can be course corrected, because even if you take the weather out of the equation, it’s such a beautiful place and there's so much history here. But step one is admitting that there's a problem, which I think is now happening. 

There’s just a lot of red tape in L.A. Or at least, I remember there being a lot of red tape. Which I know is part of the process, and that process — that red tape — gets romanticized. Like, ‘Oh, we had to negotiate for a permit to shoot here, and it took forever, but we pulled it off.’ And hey, that’s great. That’s part of the learning process. But if you're the city of L.A. and you’re creating more friction, you’re creating the marketplace for people to go elsewhere. The business has become so global, just in the last 10 years alone, right? 

It's funny, there’s this whole narrative about the Streaming Wars, which is surely a term you’ve heard of. But what was the war, exactly? I don’t understand. It was more like a streaming curbstomp, or a streaming bitch slap. A war implies some back and forth. All I saw was Netflix decisively winning, largely because it understood the world as it actually is. The other studios were programming for Brentwood. To them, the center of gravity was Brentwood.

And it felt like Netflix understood that there's a whole planet out there, and that’s where the center of gravity has shifted, because we’re now interconnected in such a way. And that's kind of a microcosm of what's been happening to L.A. in a lot of places.

Speaking of your close creative relationship with Netflix, is it fair to say you were rooting for them to buy Warner Bros. so they could have access to more IP? What are your thoughts on the Paramount merger and all that kind of stuff? 

Shankar: I focus on what I can control. I mean, sure, I have thoughts on it, but at the end of the day, I can only control the controllable. Everything else is out of my control, so I try not to spend any energy on it. If Netflix bought WB, then great, I get access to more IP.

If they don't, then it’s also great, you know what I mean? I've just been so locked in on the work. I’ve been dropping a [new season of television] or some other cool project every year for most of this decade, with my point being that it's so easy for creatives to get caught up in the architecture of the business. 

For me, I just try to control the controllable because I want to make the best anime I can so that I can grow the marketplace and the anime ecosystem in the U.S. and create more opportunities. It just so happens that anime is growing rapidly worldwide, so I’m hustling to keep that train going and really deliver there. I've cut out anything else that can distract me from that mission.

When you do get some free time these days, what are you watching, reading, or playing? 

Shankar: Well, you know, I started production on a video game. So I've really just been playing that. And then I’ve also started production on a manga. I’ve always read manga, but I’ve been trying to read more manga, so I’ve basically stopped reading American comics, because I don't want to be influenced by that structure. 

So, I've been exclusively going back and rereading all the old manga I love, like Mob Psycho 100, Demon Slayer, Bleach, Sun-Ken Rock, and others.

Interesting. I don’t read much manga, but I’m a big Death Note guy. 

Shankar: Yeah, Death Note's sick, dude. 

So listen, I wanted to ask you about James Van Der Beek. I know he was a close personal friend of yours, so how has his death impacted you? 

Shankar: Oh, wow, yeah. So, you know, Episode 1 of Devil May Cry this season is actually dedicated to him. Literally, the episode ends, and it says, ‘For my older brother.’ Because James wasn't just a friend. He was literally my older brother. 

It’s so fucked up. I nearly just kind of rage-quit everything. You know, I'll tell you this story…

We thought James was going to pass in October. There was a Dawson's Creek reunion that Kevin Williamson put on, and he was really excited to go, but he was in the hospital. Like, he was literally skin and bones, and he couldn't make it. So, Kimberly and the kids went out. 

And it was just me and him in the hospital, and I was holding his hand. The doctor was like, ‘He may not make it to tomorrow.’

And I'm just holding his hand and losing my shit, right? Because I live in this kind of fantasy cartoon world, where there's always another adventure, and we all live forever, like in superhero stuff, where people never really go away, and they can be resurrected. But now I'm dealing with a real-world crisis, and I was just so shell-shocked.

Obviously, he made it through. But that was the first time I ever truly processed [death]. And I was just filled with regret, right? 

The thing is, we only really worked together once. And that was on the Power/Rangers short. But there were so many things we wanted to do. You know what I mean? He would always be like, ‘Hey, man, why don't you just create a show for me, and I'll star in it?’

That night, I went down to the hospital cafeteria to hang out with James' brother, Jared, who looks like James and has James' mannerisms. All the micro-expressions are the same. So, you're basically talking to James. And I was telling Jared, ‘It’s not about the projects, man. It's about the memories you make with people and the fun you have when you're making them.’

So, I almost just rage-quit after that experience in October, where I thought he was going to pass, because I was just sitting there being like, ‘I don't know what the fucking point of any of this is, if you can just go at any moment.’ It just felt super unfair. James was such a good dude.

Thankfully, Netflix really rallied around me. Word got around that I was in a dark spot, and it’s hard to be a leader when you're going through an existential crisis like that. But Netflix really understood. 

I don’t mean to make James’ death all about myself, but it has definitely forced me to confront some stuff.

The other thing about James is, he knew a different side of me — and we go way back, so you know this side of me, too. But people who don't really know me, they just see this Twitter troll guy in makeup. To them, I’m just a guy with face paint who's basically upset that he never got to be a WWE performer. But James said something to me in October that I carry with me to this day.

He said, ‘Look, I need to say something to you before this ends. Don't let your need to be a WWE villain impact your spiritual growth. You're a very sweet guy. I wish you would let everyone see that.’

That's beautiful. And again, I'm terribly sorry for your loss. I know how much he meant to you. 

Shankar: Thanks, man.

I guess my final question relates to that, in a way. I’m not sure exactly how long you’ve been in the business, but looking back after nearly 20 years or so, is there anything you'd do differently? Do you have any regrets? 

Shankar: Well, I wish I hadn't just pivoted without maintaining what I had going.

Are you talking about the pivot from EP’ing movies into producing television? 

Shankar: Yeah. I mean, I could have just kept all that machinery going. But I don't really have regrets. 15 years ago, the Bootleg Universe looked completely illegal. People were going, ‘Wow, this is so clever, but what you're doing is fucking illegal.’

Right. You had to feel like you were getting away with something, on some level.

Shankar: You're doing guerrilla filmmaking, but you're getting movie and TV stars to do it, and you're not distributing it properly, you're putting it on this fucking thing called YouTube, and on top of everything, you don't control the IP. 

I know that shit looked illegal, but today, every studio is trying to manufacture what the Bootleg Universe did organically. So I don't really have regrets. I think doing that opened the door to what I'm doing now.

And look, I don't approach IP like a fucking librarian protecting a sacred museum. I approach it like a musician covering a really dope old song live in front of a big modern audience.

I don't think I would’ve arrived here without all of the past stops on the train. I had to learn how the business works, and all the training I got was so fucking valuable. I mean, how many creatives do you run into who are great, but they don't have the framework?  I can sit in the room with a suit and talk to a suit, and they're like, ‘Wow, so the makeup is just a performance?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, it's just a performance.’ Because I have a suit inside me, too.

To that point, I co-founded an AI company called DAMLA, which stands for Defense Against the Machine Learning Arts. I co-founded it with Adam Breuer, the head of AI at Dartmouth. He has a double Ph.D. from Harvard in machine learning, and he’s one of the top minds in cybersecurity and AI cybersecurity.

I think that understanding all of the business mechanisms and even just knowing how to do the deal to acquire the IP was key to me being a showrunner, because it was like conducting an orchestra on Devil May Cry. You have to know how every part of the orchestra, or the machine, works, and where the pitfalls are, and when to push that machine, and where that machine tends to collapse on itself. 

You have to know how to work with Netflix. When I started working with them, in their old office near UTA, the company was, like, 20 dudes. They were a small company. They were like, ‘Hey, you make crazy short films, right?’ 

I showed up to that first meeting for Castlevania an hour late and dressed as a cowboy with full face paint on, because I had been playing myself, or playing that character, in a music video.

I was in Ojai, and I realized I was late, so I had to speed to get to the meeting, and I was still super late, dressed as a cowboy, with makeup on. That shit would not fly today. You know what I mean? It's a very different company now. It’s a global corporation, and everyone's very serious — a real pivot from when they were a startup that appreciated the wildness.

I had a chat with my executive at the time, Larry Tanz, about this, and he said, ‘The business is shifting from the Wild West, and now it's getting more structured.’ And I'm, like, ‘Okay, I know what that means. I’ve got to show up differently.’ Right? 

What I'm saying is, I don't really look at the past with any regrets, because I know that all of these stops on the train brought me to where I am now, as an auteur showrunner who can work with IP and make it my own, and land that plane. I can be given the keys to the kingdom, or to the franchise, from Capcom and Netflix, and they trust me to conduct the orchestra — not just because I’ve delivered before, but because I know how to show up as a leader. 

I understand how all these different aspects of the business work together. So whether I’m talking to the marketing department or business affairs on the dealmaking side, or the production folks, or various vendors, I can speak all these different languages, and that just takes time to learn.

And this AI company doesn’t come about unless I built my name on copyright infringement. I'm like, ‘Oh, fuck, I kicked open the door for copyright infringement on YouTube by making these unauthorized shorts. Shit.’ But what that also did was broaden the umbrella of fair use. 

I don't know if you saw the Mr. Rogers: A War Hero short I did back in the day, but the whole thing plays like a tall tale. It’s a stupid joke, and the Mister Rogers estate was not happy. They were like, ‘Hey, you need to take this down. It’s not cool.’ And I’m like, ‘Did you watch it?’ And they’re like, ‘No, but we’ve seen your other things.’ I'm like, ‘What? It's not really like the other things.’ I mean, I like Mister Rogers. I like all the IPs that I do creative reinterpretations of. 

They're loving homages.

Shankar: Exactly. And I got an email from Google in 2018 saying, ’Hey, there's been a copyright claim over this short. We've set aside this amount of money in legal fees that you can use, and we'll support you, and we'll feel like you'll win this case.’

And I went, ‘Hold up. Google is not doing this to protect artistic freedom. Google's not like, ‘Adi, you're such a dope creator. We can't wait for you to have Robocop shoot My Little Pony next.’

No, Google was trying to expand the umbrella of what fair use means because then it feeds their fucking wood chipper, right?  I could see that even back then.

And that's why, if you look back, I basically stopped doing those unauthorized short films. I did a Pokémon short after, and then I was like, ‘Whoa.’ I thought I was fighting the “establishment,” but I was actually, like, helping the fucking cyberpunk dystopian machine empire take over the planet. I was like, ‘Fuck that shit. I don't want to participate in that shit.’ 

So, that’s why I have this anti-AI company, DAMLA, because it offers tools that help artists protect themselves against AI ingestion/infringement and fight back in the upcoming AI war.

Not just artists, but people. Artists are people, too. Because with consent, AI becomes a tool. Without it, that shit is a threat. 

Right. It's a weapon.

Shankar: I don't want to call it “rape,” but it's kind of like [intellectual] rape, and that's fucked up. And again, it's not AI, because AI doesn't really exist yet. There's something else called machine learning, and it may be a precursor to AI, but to me, this is a story of corporate overreach. It's a tale as old as time, right? I don't arrive here without experience and knowing how the pieces work together. 

Hopefully, this “War on AI” will actually be a war and not another curbstomp, because animation would probably be the first domino to drop. This is why I've been getting so many AI bros trying to court me. Because they know animation's the first domino to drop, right? And I'm doing anime, so to them, it's close enough. But I’m the only one in the West who is creating anime right now.

Was there anything that you wanted to talk about today that I didn't get a chance to ask you about? 

Shankar: Yes. Fuck Joe Russo and fuck AGBO. I’m sure the committee that's directing Avengers: Doomsday will do a good job.

Hey now! Did Joe do something to you personally?

Shankar: Maybe. Maybe not. I just think that when you look at the problem that has really destroyed our business, it's genericism. To me, he is the world's most generic man. He represents genericism in Hollywood. I'm sure he's a fine dude, but he should be doing episodes of Tracker on CBS or The Rookie on ABC. That’s a job that would be great for him. He should do that. Between him and his brother, it’s like Waldo from Where's Waldo and the Penguin got together and convinced everyone to give them $2 billion, and they basically burned the town down so that the next generation has to suffer.

You can relieve some of that suffering by watching Season 2 of Devil May Cry, which is now streaming on Netflix.

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