May 18th, 2018 
W.R. Miller 
Residents of Arcadia, beware.
Your world is not as ordinary as you may think. Below, you have trolls. Above, you have aliens. Sideways, you have wizards. And they’re all converging on your town.
Tales of Arcadia spawns from the imagination of director Guillermo del Toro, presented by Netflix and produced by DreamWorks TV Animation. The umbrella title links the first series, Trollhunters, with the upcoming 3Below later this year and Wizards in 2019.
One of the executive producers is Marc Guggenheim, whose writing credits encompass comic books (The Flash, Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men); novels (Overwatch); video games (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), film (co-screenplay, Green Lantern), and television (Law & Order and CSI: Miami; co-creator, Eli Stone; co-developer, Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow). For Trollhunters, Guggenheim has written several episodes, one of which won a Daytime Emmy in 2017.
In a phone interview with email followup, Guggenheim discussed how one epic saga, Trollhunters, evolved into a three-epic franchise.
Bob Miller: How do you manage your workload between two major franchises, Tales of Arcadia and DC’s Arrowverse?
Marc Guggenheim: Honestly, it wouldn’t be possible without the fantastic staffs I work with on Trollhunters, 3Below, Wizards, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. They’re completely indispensable and help me get it all done. Plus, time management is key. I try not to waste any time procrastinating and try to make every day productive.
Bob: How did you get involved in Trollhunters?
Marc: Originally it was a movie. There was a draft of the screenplay that was a little bit of a Frankenstein-thing where Guillermo had written the first half and they brought in another writer to write the second half. It didn’t have a cohesion because it was written by two separate writers. DreamWorks had reached out to me through my agent and asked if I would do a pass on the script. So, I did. I was about to start my second draft when we pitched the show to Netflix, really just to tell Netflix what we were up to. Netflix got very excited and they wanted to do it as a series. That caused all of us—myself especially—to breathe a real sigh of relief. It was a big challenge I had in rewriting the first draft of the script because the world that Guillermo was so big and so extensive, cramming it into 90 minutes was like the most challenging task you can imagine. The moment Netflix committed to 52 episodes, it was like, ‘Oh, thank God.’ We finally had room to tell the story that Guillermo had envisioned. So, it could not have worked out better for us.
Bob: At what point did they decide to expand it from 52 episodes to three series, the Tales of Arcadia?
Marc: That’s a good question. It was about halfway through, I think. We had done around 25 episodes where we started having those discussions. So we knew we would be able to introduce some new characters in the third season because we hadn’t started that season, yet. That was really exciting for us, because, again, it was a chance to further open up the world. Now, when you look at the Trollhunters series, 3Below and Wizards, it’s even more extensive and it’s a bigger world than Guillermo’s original Trollhunters novel. We’ve gone from straining at the seams at 90 minutes to telling a very big story across an entire universe of characters.
Krel (Diego Luna) and Aja (Tatiana Maslany)
Bob: Does this mean we’ll see the Trollhunters characters in the other two series?
Marc: Yes, there will be overlap. The goal for each of the series is to have their own distinct identities. But what’s fun is, they all take place in the same town, Arcadia. That’s why it’s called The Tales of Arcadia. The characters will overlap in some small ways. Sometimes it will be just a cameo. Sometimes it will be in significant ways. Part of the fun about watching the second and third series, is, you won’t always know what to expect. You don’t know who’s going to show up. That, to me, is a lot of fun. It’s a unique viewing experience.
Bob: In season 3 of Trollhunters, do you have any Easter eggs as to what we’ll see in the other two series? Is there a character we should look out for, or a scene that blends in with the other two?
Marc: Aja and Krel, who are played by Tatiana Maslany and Diego Luna. They appear in the third season [Episodes #48 and #51] and they are the main characters of 3Below.
Bob: Are there any other things we should look out for?
Marc: Merlin is a wizard; he’s in the third series called Wizards, so you can draw whatever conclusion you’d like to from that.
Bob: Mark Hamill was at DreamWorks at the beginning of the second season to talk about it and it was mentioned that his character was originally killed off. What was decided to bring him back as a recurring character?
Marc: He was always recurring. The series ended with his character dying. We were literally not even in the middle of his first record for Trollhunters, and I turned to Rodrigo Blaas, one of the other executive producers, and I said, “We can’t kill him off. We’ve got two more series. Mark’s too good.” We very quickly did a rewrite at the end of the series.
[Mark] discovered that his character was going to die during that first record. We had to explain, “Oh, no-no-no-no” in the middle of the record; “we were so impressed, we changed our minds while you were doing your job.” It was a little awkward, but I have to say Mark is such a class act, and he was so kind and generous about it. He rolls with all the punches.
Bob: Was “Creepslayerz” a backdoor pilot, or trial episode, of the kind of action/humor we’ll see in 3Below and Wizards?
Marc: It wasn’t a backdoor pilot, but we’re all very gratified that that episode resonated with so many people in the way that it did. You haven’t seen the last of Eli and Steve, who have prominent roles—arguably more prominent than in Trollhunters—in 3Below and Wizards.
Bob: One particular episode that you wrote, “Mistrial and Error,” is special because of your background. Would you mind elaborating on that?
Marc: We knew we were putting Jim on trial, and the showrunners asked if I would write that particular episode. Because we knew it would be a little tricky, also. I didn’t want it to be boring, putting Jim on trial. That was a lot of fun for me. I really enjoyed doing that, because I want to say that was a children’s animation “first” of having a little trial in the middle of your children’s animated show.
Bob: But you also have a legal background.
Marc: Yes. I used to be a lawyer [Hutchins Wheeler & Dittmar, Boston, Massachusetts] and had written for a lot of law shows [Law & Order, CSI Miami, In Justice]. So I was able to rely on a lot of old muscles, which was a blast for me. I always like to combine those things when I can.
Bob: And kind of make fun of the genre a little bit, right?
Marc: A little bit. You want to tweak it. One of the early ideas we had was, Toby was the worst defense attorney ever. Everything he knows about the law comes from watching television.
Bob: In writing for CG animation, what restrictions do you have to make to accommodate the existing CG models, characters and other assets?
Marc: New CG assets always add to the budget. And complexity and character density not only has a financial consequence, but it’s also hard on our already hard-working vendors. That said, we take the same philosophy I do on my live action shows, namely, we write the best version possible and, as I like to say, “revise for reality” from there.
Bob: Also, for having three series occur in the same town, you’re going to save on the budget in terms of your assets, right?
Marc: You know, it’s funny. That was the original idea. It turned out not to be the case. We ended up adding so many new things and upgrading so many others that we didn’t end up saving money. It didn’t work out that way.
Bob: What is the advantage of working with Netflix as opposed to cable or broadcast television?
Marc: They’re just so incredibly supportive. We took a lot of risks, particularly in the third season of Trollhunters. Quite frankly, having done network television for 18 years, I can tell you with a lot of confidence that a broadcast network wouldn’t let us do it. They’d be too afraid. Netflix has always been very supportive and encouraging.
Bob: So you’re finding you have a lot more creative freedom from a streaming service then, right?
Marc: Oh, so much more.
Trollhunters, Part 3, premieres May 25 on Netflix.
3Below premieres later in 2018.
Wizards premieres in 2019.
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.
Posted in 
Tags: 
