June 13, 2022 – Los Angeles, CA – Today, McFarlane Films announced a partnership with independent studio wiip and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Rooster Teeth Studios to develop an adult animated TV series based on the popular McFarlane Toys RAW10 toy line – an action figure series of cybernetically enhanced animals created by McFarlane Toys and recently sold exclusively at Walmart. The team will be taking the project to buyers at the top of next month..

From creator Dan Dominguez – known for Netflix’s SEIS MANOS and HBO Max’s gen:LOCK –  the RAW10 adaptation will be an R-Rated Saturday morning cartoon for adults that satirically explores the tropes of 80’s era animation through the lens of McFarlane’s toyline.

Comic book legend Todd McFarlane, creator of the Spawn universe, won two Emmy Awards for his groundbreaking animated series of the same name, which aired on HBO from 1997 to 1999. RAW10 represents McFarlane’s first foray back into the medium – 23 years later – in collaboration with wiip and Rooster Teeth Studios. His toy company, McFarlane Toys, is a top-5 global leader in its field, redefining the action figure market’s standards and a licensee of world-class brands and leading global franchises. When McFarlane first announced the RAW10 launch in 2020, pre-orders sold out within hours. The line was met with widespread praise and enthusiasm not only from the media, but also from adult collectors and pop-culture enthusiasts who grew up during the modern action figure renaissance of the 80s and 90s.

“Having fun in the older-skewing animation space is always something I am thinking about,” said Todd McFarlane. “With the off-beat mind of writer Dan Dominguez and the experience of Rooster Teeth, we are all hoping the combined total will be a wild and entertaining ride for everyone. Animation lets our minds have an unlimited budget to create everything.”

Writer and executive producer Dan Dominguez has worked in animation with such genre luminaries as John Carpenter, Clive Barker, Malcolm Spellman, and Jeff Howard. He is creating and executive producing the animated series, alongside Todd McFarlane, McFarlane Films’ Sean Canino, wiip’s Paul Lee, Mark Roybal and Nate Winslow and Rooster Teeth Studios’ Dan Shorr.

“When I was a kid, I loved Saturday Morning Cartoons and, as I got older, my love of animation only got stronger thanks to anime,” said Dominguez. “So many of the great R-rated toons out of Japan showed me that genre animation could be made for grownups. That they could be darkly hilarious, thematically rich, cerebral, violent, and seductive. So when I got the chance to come up with the world’s first adult Saturday morning cartoon, and to do it with Todd McFarlane – a personal hero who opened my eyes to how grown up comic books could be… needless to say, this project has been a dream come true. So get ready for deeply unsettling, grown-up style laughs! Thrills! Chills! Gore! Sex! Adult themes! And… emotions! Yes, I do in fact plan on having a 30 foot tall cybernetic gorilla make you cry.”

RAW10 toyline fan favorites will make their debut in the show, including FREN-Z – a robotic blend of a great white shark and prehistoric megalodon, BATTLESNAKE – a super genius reptilian monster, and CY-GOR – part guerilla, part cyborg. Although CY-GOR was originally introduced in the Spawn universe, and his Spawn backstory may come into play, the RAW10 animated series will remain separate from the Spawn franchise.

Independent studio wiip, known for HBO’s Emmy Award-winning series Mare of Easttown and Apple TV+’s Peabody Award-winning Dickinson, has been eager to enter the animated space and has prioritized development in the medium.

“With Todd’s highly anticipated return to TV animation, Dan’s blistering run of genre defying shows, and Rooster Teeth’s flawless track-record, wiip couldn’t be in better company to launch our first animated show,” said Mark Roybal, wiip. “We’re always going to bet on the most original, daring and creative filmmakers – and that’s what we have with Todd, Dan, and Dan. This show is definitely going to wake up the whole house on Saturday morning.”

Rooster Teeth Studios’ production credits include Michael B. Jordan’s gen:LOCK on HBO Max and Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy on Netflix. Rooster Teeth also produces the award-winning Halo satire Red vs. Blue, which is the longest-running web series in history, and the global phenomenon RWBY. Rooster Teeth Studios is represented by CAA.

“I had a Spawn movie poster at my Bar Mitzvah, which is a choice that feels officially justified,” said Dan Shorr, Rooster Teeth Studios’ Head of Scripted. “We’ve absolutely loved working with our partners at McFarlane Films and wiip and reuniting with our brilliant gen:LOCK Executive Producer Dan Dominguez to help put together this unique love letter to genre storytelling.”

About wiip
wiip is an independent studio led by veteran entertainment executive Paul Lee and is distinctive in its commitment to letting talent do what talent does best – create. wiip’s premium slate of shows includes the Emmy® Award-winning limited series, “Mare of Easttown,” starring Kate Winslet for HBO; “Dickinson,” the critically acclaimed Peabody Award-winning series starring Hailee Steinfeld for Apple TV+, Danny Boyle’s “Pistol” for FX exclusively on Hulu; Jenny Han’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” for Amazon Prime Video; “The White House Plumbers,” starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux for HBO; Adam McKay’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” for HBO Max; and “Dummy” starring Anna Kendrick for the Roku Channel. The studio also produced Arthur Mathews and Matt Berry’s “Toast of Tinseltown” in conjunction with the BBC.

About McFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys has received top honors in The NPD Group’s 2021 Toy Industry Performance Awards in the 2021 Super Category of Top-Selling Action Figures and Accessories for the U.S and Canada.  Under McFarlane’s creative direction, McFarlane Toys action figures and toys are consistently on the “Best Seller” and “Top Toy” lists at national mass retailers. McFarlane Toys is one of America’s top action figure manufacturers, raising the bar and redefining the art of action figures. An industry leader, McFarlane Toys is one of the most respected toy manufacturers globally and a licensee of world-class brands and leading global franchises.

About Rooster Teeth
Rooster Teeth is a fan-driven, community-built entertainment company. From humble origins in a spare bedroom, Rooster Teeth created the web series Red vs. Blue, an innovative form of entertainment for a changing media landscape that sparked the growth of a passionate global fandom. From that foundation, Rooster Teeth pioneered a direct-to-consumer lifestyle brand for its growing online following with subscriptions, advertising, e-commerce, and live events. Rooster Teeth produces several original content series, including RWBY, the most popular western-style anime series today, The Rooster Teeth Podcast, and daily video series featuring an in-house cast of influential talent. With broadcast and live-action production capabilities and a world-class animation studio, Rooster Teeth engages industry-leading networks, streaming entertainment services, and creative talent to develop projects that reach global audiences through its Studios division. Rooster Teeth cultivates the gaming lifestyle it helped define with partnerships through its industry-leading video-first podcast network, The Roost. Rooster Teeth has a massive global footprint of more than 45 million subscribers to its YouTube Network, 1.2 million unique monthly visitors across its apps, and more than 4 million registered community members. The company was founded in 2003 and is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Discover more at RoosterTeeth.com.

About Todd McFarlane and McFarlane Films
McFarlane Films is an entertainment and development company within the ever-expanding live-action and animated film arenas. McFarlane Films is developing its original content with wiip, the independent studio behind HBO’s Emmy Award-winning series “Mare of Easttown,” and finding and developing new emerging talent, creator-owned properties, and independent brands, stories, and characters.

McFarlane Films’ initial television development slate includes projects from established creators such as Thomas Lennon, co-creator of RENO 911! and writer of NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM; Anders Weidemann, who adapted HBO’s BEARTOWN and created Paramount +’s INTERROGATION; prolific graphic-novel author, Sean Lewis; and ShadowMachine, who produced BOJACK HORSEMAN and Guillermo Del Toro’s upcoming PINOCCHIO and SAM & TWITCH into a live-action TV series. Inspired by the iconic characters from McFarlane’s Spawn comic, the premium drama series follows detectives Sam Burke and Max “Twitch” Williams as they fight the evils of a near-future New York City. SAM & TWITCH is being adapted by executive producers Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg for McFarlane Films and wiip.

Todd McFarlane has earned two Emmy Awards, one Grammy Award, two Grammy nominations, two MTV Video Music Awards, a Canadian MuchMusic Award, and more than 150 International awards in action figures and comic books, and publishing.
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn is one of the world’s best-selling and longest-running monthly creator-owned superhero comic books, with hundreds of millions sold worldwide in more than 120 countries. In 2021, McFarlane comics were the top-selling titles, outselling every Marvel and DC title. The comic became an Emmy Award-winning animated series on HBO and a live-action feature film that grossed $100 million.

McFarlane became a true comic book superstar for his record-setting work on Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man franchise, where he co-created Marvel’s top-villain character, Venom.