July 17th, 2024 
W.R. Miller 
With the narrative portion of The Dragon Prince drawing to a close, Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond reflect on their achievement. After all, it’s rare for a made-for-streaming series to last seven seasons, with untapped potential for more. What are the odds of that happening, and how did the Wonderstorm producers beat those odds?
“In the days of network TV, something got put on for a couple of seasons, and if it did well and caught fire, they gave it more and more seasons—seven, eight or nine seasons. Those days are gone,” Ehasz says. “In the modern mediascape, most series are going to be for one, two, or three seasons maximum. The viewing pattern is not that it builds steam over time and then grows, which was when you have these weekly shows. They start to build an audience, they build an audience, and now it’s worth doing more and more and more seasons. Well, that’s not really how it’s working with streaming.
“It’s really rare to have a situation where you get to Season Three, and someone says, “Hey, actually, this audience is growing, this audience is getting bigger and bigger, and we should more than double down and get Season Four and Five and Six and Seven.” So it’s super-rare. The odds were terribly against us.
“So how did we get there? Well, some of it is, I think, we shared with our audience and our community that we had a saga here, we had a story we want to tell, and they were eager to hear it, and they said so, and there were the hashtags, ‘Give us the saga.’ All kinds of great energy around asking for more. That energy manifested in Season Three being a big growth season for The Dragon Prince. A lot of new people came in and checked out the series. And it said to Netflix, hey, it’s not just the loyal people, the loyal people are—through word of mouth—growing our audience, are adding new fans, new hardcore fans. And so we got to make the new season. That was very much against the odds, and it’s yeah, 100% because we have such a devoted following of passionate fans who speak their mind, who share it with others, who bring other people into the community and grow The Dragon Prince.”
The question arises, how did Netflix receive such feedback? Through the ratings? Social media?
“It all fits together,” Ehasz says. “We talk sometimes about how we care more about ‘heart balls’ than eyeballs. In the old days of TV, all they [the network] cared about was if you got 20 million eyeballs to watch this show, those eyeballs were going to watch the Chevy commercial that came on, or the Charmin commercial, or whatever. 20 million people were going to see that ad and it all works out. Didn’t matter if the show was great or people loved it or people cared about it or not if they had 20 million people watching it, those eyeballs were watching the advertising.
“Well, that’s not the case anymore. It’s about, are they coming back for more? Do they care? Are they attached? Is this a long-term relationship?
“It’s their heart, not their eyeballs now. So it’s one thing to say, “Okay, well, we have 20 million people watching,” it’s another thing to say, “We have 20 million people who care about this, who talk about it.” Social media is part of that, but it’s in your life, at school, or with colleagues, or friends. It continues to matter ‘cause that 20 million then becomes 21 million and 23 million and 27 million, and you hope that that momentum that comes through that word of mouth and that attachment builds something. It’s something you can build on for the long term. That’s our intention. So it’s not just ratings, it’s actually engagement. It’s long-term ratings. It’s like you care enough to keep watching and to build the phenomenon together.”
“Okay, that’s fan reaction,” I say, “But you did something to bring in the fan base. What did you do?”
Ehasz remarks, “You mean aside from being geniuses and storytelling masters?”
Though speaking in jest, his words are not without merit. His writing pedigree includes spending five years as Head Writer and Co-Executive Producer on Avatar: The Last Airbender, eleven years as Executive Story Editor/Writer on Futurama, three years as Creative Director at Riot Games, and now, nearly nine years as the Co-Creator/Writer on The Dragon Prince—winner of a Daytime Emmy in 2020 for Outstanding Children’s Animated Series and a Leo Award winner this year for Best Animated Series and for Best Art Direction (by Edison Yu, for “Domina Profundis”).
He adds, “The truth is—and maybe this is a better question for fans themselves—but I would speculate that our fans appreciate authenticity in our characters, richness and detail in the worldbuilding, and what I believe is a deep sense of earned optimism and hope in this saga. The first is so important—we as creators, and all the writers, and our phenomenal voice actors all treat the characters as if they are REAL. We do not control them, we discover them, we find them, and we reveal them. I think something about our process leaves room for the characters to live and breathe on their own in a way that gives them presence and reality outside of ourselves as creators, and I think that invests the characters with great authenticity and value.
“The second thing is similar which is that we all (writers, artists, animators, etc.) put time and energy into every detail and idea about the world of Xadia, big and small. We want it to have richness and dimension that makes you believe in it, and makes you want to be there, or imagine that you could be. The key to this is recognizing how intelligent and thoughtful our audience is, and therefore realizing that no detail is too small to be appreciated by an audience like that—investing in our world as creators pays off because our audience sees it and feels it.
“And the third thing—which I hope matters—is we want our audience to feel a core of optimism, but not bullshit meaningless optimism … something that is deep, real, and earned. The world of The Dragon Prince is full of suffering, challenges, death, reversals, struggles—but it’s also full of characters who survive their falls, support each other in pain, face repeated failures and still believe in a brighter future and love, etc. There’s a balance where we want to build a world that is daunting and difficult and unrelenting, and we want characters who feel real pain and discouragement and despair—but who ultimately find hope and resilience at their deepest core.”
Ehasz throws the question over to his partner, Justin Richmond.
“We were able to do a couple of things,” Richmond says. “One is, we control our own social media, and so we were able to have a direct relationship with our fans. That may not be true for other shows, because we actually own The Dragon Prince. We actually have a lot more control over what we can do with it and how fast we can do approvals and things that really matter. That helps a lot. We were able to sell the show in an era in which we’re able to still own the IP, which is almost impossible today. It was hard back then, but it’s almost impossible today, and so because of that, we own all the things you see around Dragon Prince, we either have direct input over or control ourselves.”
Ehasz chimes in: “But Justin, how does that affect the success of the property? Why does the fact that we own it make any difference to how it engages people?”
“I think it’s because of the story. It’s more authentic,” Richmond says.
“We are motivated to go to conventions and connect with people,” Ehasz says. “Because it’s that much more personal, like it’s co-owned with the audience. It doesn’t feel as much like a media company that’s making a thing to go whatever. This is a storytelling experience that is ours and theirs. It’s all of ours. That’s how I think of ownership. It’s not just about like we get 5% of the graphic novels or something, it’s not that.”
“Yeah, no, it’s not about the money,” Richmond says.
“It’s not like we can talk about it and we can go out and we can make those graphic novels. We can decide to do things that are right for the audience and the fans. Right?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Richmond says. “Like when we made the graphic novels, we got to choose who was going to be our partner on it, and like we had multiple people asking to make books and stuff for us, but we picked the people we thought were going to be the best. It wasn’t a choice forced upon us. Yeah, it’s a more intimate relationship with the fan base, and we got to grow alongside with them, which is awesome. That’s pretty rare in any kind of entertainment that you have that kind of relationship with your audience.”
Ehasz adds, “Well, I’m emphasizing there is something about ownership in the creative sense that leads to something that is so deep in terms of our relationship with the audience and everyone’s relationship with this story that is deeper and realer in many ways than if we hadn’t had the chance to kind of fully embrace it together. There you have it.”
In the business of entertainment, this level of studio-fan interaction is extraordinary. Can you imagine any other American studio executive visiting conventions and engaging with the general public?
Meanwhile, Wonderstorm will be offering more adventures from the world of Xadia.
“We’re not done with The Dragon Prince yet,” Richmond says. “We have our entire team working on the video game right now. It’s going to be totally authentic. The people that worked on the show are also working on the game. It’s all in-house, and it’s a big deal.”
Says Ehasz, “There’s a ton of new things being built for the Xadia game. Most of our team is engaged building out that world, building out new characters and adventures and regions and storylines in Xadia that are a growth of the Dragon Prince world and story. At the same time, when Season Seven comes out, I think the audience will understand how it is both an ending and a beginning and that there is something else out there, so hopefully we will have a chance to move forward into that.
“At the same time, Wonderstorm does have some other things that have great stories and characters, but also wonderful worlds where great game experiences can exist. I can’t really say more, but we have some really cool partners talking with us. So we have other adventures planned.”
Interviewed via Zoom on May 22, 2024, with an email follow-up on July 17.
The Dragon Prince: Mystery of Aaravos Season Six premieres on Netflix on July 26. The Dragon Prince: Xadia game premieres online July 30.
Wonderstorm will have two panels at Comic-Con International: San Diego. At 7:00 p.m. on July 26, they’ll screen all of Season Six in Ballroom 20. The next day at 10:30 a.m. in Room Room 6BCF, “The Dragon Prince: Epic Launch Week Celebration” will discuss Season Six, peek at Season Seven, check out the online Xadia game.
He has just completed Batman: The Animated Interviews, a five-volume work featuring the executives, producers, directors, writers, actors, designers, storyboard artists and composers involved with the making of Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs. BearManor Media is the publisher.
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