Paramount+ Just Quietly Released The Quirkiest New Fantasy Epic
Although the video game landscape is already pretty firmly in the ninth generation (with games like Grand Theft Auto 6 already looking to push the bounds of current-gen consoles), there’s still a lot to admire and be inspired by in eras of gaming long past. Not only is the current state of gaming indebted to the bygone days of arcade cabinets, but Hollywood, in its ever-present search for new IP to mine, isn’t afraid to go back to the classics.
There are, of course, the juggernauts of classic gaming: Mario, Sonic, Castlevania, all of which have received the adaptation treatment at this point. But you don’t have to be extremely iconic or immediately recognizable to get a movie or a TV show, as evidenced by the upcoming Paramount+ animated adaptation of the Golden Axe games. As the creators of the series, Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler can tell you, all it takes is having a fanbase that remembers you fondly.
“I was doing punch-up comedy on the Sonic the Hedgehog movies with Sega,” McMahan tells Inverse, “and they were big fans of mine and asked if there was anything in the old arcade era of Sega I’d be interested in adapting. I jumped on Golden Axe because I’d been wanting to do something more mythological. I also played an obscene amount of Golden Axe as a kid, I used to go to this camp with a modded Golden Axe arcade machine that didn’t take quarters, and I f***ing sucked at it but I loved it.”
It’s easy to see, just talking to the creators (including Joe, who called it his “favorite game from childhood without a competitor”), that despite not being as revered as some of its contemporaries, Golden Axe is still a standout beat-em-up from an era when they were ubiquitous. Set in the once-calm medieval land of Yuria, each game revolves around a band of adventurers (Gillius Thunderhead, Ax Battler, and Tyris Flare in the original) seeking to free their kingdom from the clutches of the dictatorial giant Death Adder. It’s a serviceable enough premise for a simplistic sword-and-sorcery game from 1989, but the TV show extrapolates on the inherent absurdity of the original material while also adding a welcome helping of the kind of adult comedy McMahan and Chandler are veterans at.
“Like with Star Trek: Lower Decks, there was already comedy in Golden Axe,” says McMahan. “You had these little imps that kicked you to steal your magic, you’re riding these beasts that were so fun and weird and purple, all we did was increase what was already there. But like with Lower Decks, it was writing up to the characters, hire the funniest actors and follow their lead, give them what they need, hear these amazing performances and work with really funny people like Joe, and have an amazing writing staff and artists to bring it all together.”
While McMahan and Chandler are very familiar to imbuing outlandish worlds with a comedic touch, their approach wouldn’t work without a dedicated ensemble that includes Matthew Rhys as the dwarf warrior Gillius; Lisa Gilroy as the amazon sorceress Tyris Flare; Liam McIntyre (who just starred in Marvel’s Wolverine) as the barbarian Ax Battler; Carl Tart as the half-wolf beastman Chronos Lait; and Danny Pudi as the aloof audience surrogate OC Hampton Squib. Even if it’s a lesser-known gaming property, Golden Axe is still a nerd culture fixture, and that usually comes with a level of intimidation, not just from fans but also approaching something meaningful to those working on it — but according to Liam McIntyre, who “decided to go method” and “be a massive nerd for life,” it’s an experience unlike any other.
“In terms of the culture, I’ve done some conventions and met some of the most delightful people. I like to tell my friends ‘imagine if you had the Super Bowl, but people understood the things you liked, so instead of jerseys everyone’s got on costumes and stuff,’” McIntyre tells Inverse. “It’s a place I find very happy but there’s a lot of discourse online so it can be intimidating, but as a person who’s always been a big nerd, I’m just like ‘I want to make the version of me happy that looked up to these voice actors and performances from the things that I loved in the ‘80s and ‘90s.’”
“It’s so rare that a project comes your way that has this kind of presence in some very formative years of your life,” says Rhys, another childhood fan of the games. “At first, I just thought it’d be a sincere rendition of it, but they were very shrewd in making a slightly more risqué adult version that not only pays the right homage to it, but also observes very eloquently the madness of the piece and celebrates that with humor. To be able to do a project of this importance to us, I think is not only rare but wondrous.”
High fantasy is a genre filled with larger-than-life characters, and Golden Axe is certainly no exception. With characters who are meant to be the pinnacle of the warrior hero archetype, you wouldn’t expect actors to fit into those roles so neatly, but the show finds ways to make those stock characters relatable.
“I would say for Chronos,” says Carl Tart, “it’s this level of confidence, the idea of ‘fake it till you make it.’ I’ve definitely done that before. There’s a meme of a guy who’s like ‘I heard this job was paying a lot of money,’ and he’s standing in front of all these wires, and that’s definitely me sometimes. I’m going to figure out where those wires go, and that definitely bleeds in from my real life.”
It’s a sentiment Danny Pudi, who plays the audience’s gateway into the world of Yuria, agrees with. “Hampton is a fan of this world, and I’m a fan of Matthew Rhys. I was really excited to work with him in this, so you’ll see Hampton’s energy and his fandom of Gilius is equal to Danny’s fandom for Matthew.”
A lot of previous video game adaptations have either been stiflingly self-serious or ashamed of their source material, but the thing that stands out the most about the Golden Axe series is that its mature humorous edge is coming from a place of genuine love and familiarity. There’s a lot of fantasy on the small screen and a lot of gaming shows heading that way as well, but the eagerness with which this particular series is embracing the ridiculousness of the original games hopefully means it’ll charm classic fans and newcomers when it finally premieres.