Lucifer’s Tom Ellis and Lucy Liu are set to star.
In some of the most surprising news we’ve heard in a while, Netflix have announced that they’re bringing the Exploding Kittens card game to their platform. We’ve heard about the streamer’s plan to ramp up the gaming side of its business for a while and this feels like a first high-profile step.
The original game, which began as a Kickstarter in 2015, raised $8.7 million and has sold over ten million copies. It bears the excellent tag line “A card game for people who are into kittens and explosions. And Laser Beams. And Some Times Goats.”
Exploding Kittens – the animation
The show, which adapts the game as an adult animated comedy series, boasts input from comedy legends Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Silicon Valley) and Greg Daniels (Parks & Recreation, Upload).
Here’s the premise:
“The eternal conflict between Heaven and Hell reaches epic proportions when both God and the Devil are sent to Earth — in the bodies of chunky house cats.”
Even though it’s early days for the show, we already have some casting details. Tom Ellis (Lucifer) will play God Cat, while Sasheer Zamata has been cast as Devil Cat. Abraham Ku and Ally Maki will play siblings with Elementary’s Lucy Liu as their mother. Mark Proksch (What We Do In The Shadows, Better Call Saul) will also star.
As ever, there’s a whole host of creatives; Shane Kosakowski and Matthew Inman will serve as showrunners. The executive producers are Judge, Daniels and Dustin Davis of Bandera Entertainment, Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping for the Chernin Entertainment Group – plus Exploding Kittens franchise creators Elan Lee and The Oatmeal’s Inman.
Exploding Kittens – The Game
The accompanying mobile game, titled Exploding Kittens – The Game, will launch directly onto the mobile version of Netflix. It will be available to subscribers with no additional fees or in-app purchases. Essentially, it will recreate the physical gameplay where players draw cards aiming to avoid the Exploding Kitten.
There will however be a couple of innovations, with two new cards. “Radar” reveals the position of the closest Exploding Kitten card to the top of the deck. “Flip Flop” reverses the deck order. We’re also told that “Future cards and game mechanics will be themed around the animated series so friends and families can play with their favourite characters and bring the show to life.”
Exploding Kittens – The Game launches in May 2022, the animation follows in 2023.
We’ll keep you posted.