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Credit: Netflix
Wednesday is one of the most popular and binge-worthy TV shows on Netflix, nay, anywhere; so it perhaps makes perfect sense that its co-creators were keen to double down on another female-led horror-leaning story based on an already popular piece of IP. Color me both tickled and excited as hell to learn that Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are once again teaming up with Netflix to adapt one of my favorite genre comics in recent years, centering on a female Grim Reaper.
The Wednesday duo have been tapped to help bring to life the dark, introspective, and often amusing series Grim, co-created by esteemed writer Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn, Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider) and artist Flaviano (I Am Groot, Power Man and Iron Fist). It’s a banger of a story, and the way it’s being produced makes it seem like it could potentially be a good fit for Jenna Ortega herself, assuming there’s even room in her upcoming schedule.
What Is Grim About?
The rather epic story at the unbeating heart of Grim starts with main character Jessica Harrow’s death, or rather her post-death, where she’s recruited as a Reaper, with the responsibility of leading the dearly departed from the corporeal plane into the afterlife. However, setting her apart from other Reapers is the fact that she has no idea how she died, and why she was brought into her hellish new position.
To solve the mystery, Jessica teams up with those she trusts the most to try and fill in the gaps in her memory while also facing the threat of a world without death. Her journey is full of fun twists and emotional turns, with music playing a core role in the storytelling, both visually and contextually.
Credit: Amazon
How Is Grim Being Adapted?
Given the comic book’s dark and often sinister visuals and settings, which skew heavily on the red and black side, Grim would likely be expensive as a motherfluffer to produce in live-action, so I can understand Netflix’s impetus in wanting to spin this upcoming book-to-screen adaptation as an adult-skewing animated series, likely more on par with Castlevania and Blood of Zeus than BoJack Horseman or Haunted Hotel.
More On Wednesday
Wednesday with arms crossed outside in cemetery in Wednesday Season 2
To help along with that particular process, Deadline reports that Gough and Millar will be working with the artistically minded Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who co-directed the second and third Kung Fu Panda movies. She’s also worked in various capacities (storyboard artist, character designs, etc.) on a slew of other family-friendly animated projects such as The Iron Giant, Monsters vs. Aliens, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and more.
What’s more notable for this particular project, though, is that Nelson has worked as a Supervising Director on Netflix’s highly acclaimed and Emmy-winning animated series Love, Death + Robots. As well, she co-directed several episodes of the HBO series Spawn, which were compiled into the 1998 feature Todd McFarlane’s Spawn 2 and ts 1999 sequel. She also worked on Ralph Bakshi’s late ’90s series Spicy City.
Why Jenna Ortega Would Be A Great Fit
Though I would very likely take issue with the Wednesday star portraying Jessica Harrow in a live-action series, due to age-related issues, I think her taking on the voice of the character would be perfectly fitting, and would give her a dark universe to play around in without having to fall back on Wednesday’s signature monotone deliveries.
Working as closely as she has with Alfred Gough and Miles Millar on the Addams Family offshoot, which is potentially getting at least one spinoff, Ortega could likely just talk her way into this role (no pun intended), but it might come down to how available she is. To be expected, being one of the most in-demand young actresses in Hollywood does not make it easy to jump into projects just because that one guy at CinemaBlend really wants her to.
Beyond the impending Season 3 of Wednesday, which she’s recently voiced her hopes for, Ortega will soon be seen opposite Glen Powell in J.J. Abrams’ Ghostwriter, as well as Taika Waititi’s sci-fi drama Klara and the Sun. She’s also co-starring with her Wednesday mum Catherine Zeta-Jones in Cathy Yan’s thriller The Gallerist, and has been attached for a while to a David O. Russell project, Shutout, that may or may not come to fruition. And those are just the ones we know about.
Regardless of who ends up playing Jessica Harrow in Grim, I’m absolutely going to be watching and obsessing over the Netflix animated series. Just in case I ever find myself pegged to be the next Grim Reaper, it’ll be good to have as much research as possible.
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