Production
At an Investor Day presentation on November 6, 2015, Activision Blizzard announced the formation of Activision Blizzard Studios, a film production subsidiary dedicated to creating original films and television series. Headed by former The Walt Disney Company executive Nick van Dyk, Activision Blizzard Studios would look to produce and adapting Skylanders into a film and television series; the latter being called Skylanders Academy, which started airing on October 28, 2016 on Netflix.[13]
The series is a spin-off, said to be separate from the storyline of the games with no direct tie-ins to sequels. In addition, the different voice cast is made to give the show its own separate identity. However, despite the changes, Richard Horvitz, Jonny Rees, Bobcat Goldthwait, Billy West, Fred Tatasciore, and Courtenay Taylor are the only actors from the games to reprise their roles as Kaos, Jet-Vac, Pop Fizz, Food Fight, Snap Shot, and Hex respectively.[14] Patrick Warburton would later go on to reprise his role as Captain Flynn in the third season.[15] Showrunner Eric Rogers provided the voice of Crash Bandicoot due to his creative partners being impressed on giving the character an Australian Accent during a temp-track he recorded.
The trailer for the second season was released on September 19, 2017.[16] Mark Hamill was originally considered to reprise his role as Malefor, a character that originated from The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, but was unable to as he was busy filming Star Wars: The Last Jedi.[17] Flynn, Sal, Whirlwind, Fiesta, Tree Rex, Jawbreaker, The Gulper and Dr. Krankcase were characters planned to appear in the second season, but were cut due to budget reasons.[18] Flynn himself, would later go on to appear in the following season a year later.
The trailer for the third season was released on September 18, 2018.[19] During production of Season three, Eric Rogers stepped down as showrunner and was replaced by both Clayton Sakoda and Ian Weinreich in his absence, and due to his departure, Rogers was unable to reprise Crash Bandicoot and was later replaced by Rhys Darby.[15]
