The Netflix animated series Castlevania ended its four-season run in 2021. Based on the popular video games from the Japanese company Konami, the show adapted the third game in the series for two seasons before moving on to other stories in the third and fourth. The show’s final two seasons received polarizing responses.
While the show has impressed fans in most instances, it has also been notorious for not listening to fans’ demands. The final season sees Dracula survive the showdown between him and protagonist Trevor Belmont and introduces Death into the lore of the show. When asked if the fans’ demands were part of the decision, producer Kevin Kolde mentioned that they do not listen to the fans all the time.
Castlevania Producer Talks About Not Listening To Fans
The Netflix adaptation of the Castlevania games received mostly positive responses from fans. The animated series adapted the game Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse for its first two seasons and followed Trevor Belmont, a monster hunter who tries to defeat the oppressive empire of Dracula. He is joined by other magical beings.
The show ended in 2021 after a four-season run. Producer Kevin Kolde of Frederator Studios mentioned that the team did not expect to be renewed for that long and had initially only planned the storyline up to the second season. However, due to the positive response from the fans, the series was renewed and finally ended with an epic showdown.
In the series finale, Dracula is saved from Hell and trapped in the body of a Rebis, which allows Death to feed on more souls. In an interview with Screen Rant, Kevin Kolde mentioned how the fans played a role in this creative decision,
Creatively, we’ve looked at the series in sort of two parts – season 1 and season 2 – which, you know, was the goal of telling the Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse story. And then when the series was going to continue… how to continue the series for another two seasons? Bringing in Death as the final architect in trying to bring Dracula back just made the most sense. We do listen to fans, but we don’t always listen to fans because they always tell us to bring Grant [Danasty] in. We haven’t done that.
Kolde also mentioned that their intention never was to appeal to fans of the video games but to that of the genre of dark fantasy. He also said that they hoped the show would reach a broader audience.
Kevin Kolde Talks About Grant Danasty Fans Of Castlevania
Speaking of not listening to the fans, one of the most controversial decisions that the makers of Castlevania made was to not introduce the fan-favorite character Grant Danasty. The fans reportedly demanded his inclusion multiple times and hoped that the pirate would make it into the Netflix series.
The character was reportedly not included in the planned movie version of the game that was first developed by showrunner Warren Ellis. Ellis reportedly also said that he would never include Grant Danasty in the show as he felt that it was a stupid name (via Bleeding Cool). However, Kevin Kolde told Screen Rant that he felt bad for the fans.
Yeah, the Grant fans are always my favorite! They don’t give up – for four seasons, they have not given up. They’re like ‘Where’s Grant?’ every time there’s a new image. ‘It’s Grant! It’s Grant in the background!’
Despite demands from fans, the character still seems to be ‘unworthy’ of inclusion as the spinoff series Castlevania: Nocturne also excluded him. However, co-producer Adi Shankar revealed in an interview with Kotaku that even though he is not shown in the series, Grant Danasty still exists in the world of the show.
Castlevania is streaming on Netflix.
