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Rivals Netflix And Hulu Land Major Deals With Huge Animation Creators

By Trisha Faulkner
Published on: 14:06 PST, Aug 28, 2018

A cartoon war is brewing between Netflix and Hulu, as each streaming giant recently signed deals with hot names in the animation industry.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Alex Hirsch recently signed a multiyear deal with Netflix to create new animation content for the streaming giant. Following right in line with their competitor, Hulu signed a deal for a two-season, 16-episode animated series called Solar Opposites, to be created by Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan, Deadline confirms.

Netflix Struck Gold

Alex Hirsch is a huge name in the animation industry after creating the Emmy-winning Disney XD series Gravity Falls. Signing a deal with this 33-year-old animator is a huge deal for Netflix as the streaming giant will now have his hand to help create and develop both content and features.

For those unfamiliar with his work, Gravity Falls is the name of a series in the sci-fi and apocalyptic genre. The series followed the story of tween twins and aired from 2012 to 2016. Once Gravity Falls concluded, Hirsch shifted to screenwriting for Detective Pikachu, which is a game-based film expected for release sometime next year.

At the series finale of Gravity Falls, the show averaged out at just shy of 3 million viewers. This made the series the most-watched Disney XD telecast at that time. Alex joins the home of hot animated series such as Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, and Matt Groening’s Disenchantment.

“Alex is an imaginative storyteller with new ideas who’s quickly developed a reputation as a fresh new voice in animation,” Netflix Originals VP Cindy Holland said in a statement yesterday.

“We couldn’t be more excited to work with him as we continue expanding our adult animated slate.”

Hulu Struck Gold Too

Justin Roiland, on the other hand, is a huge get for Hulu as the co-creator of Adult Swim’s sci-fi series Rick and Morty. According to the report by Deadline, Solar Opposites is “an aliens-in-Middle-America story from Twentieth Century Fox.”

Roiland is certainly going to be busy as Adult Swim signed Rick and Morty for a 70-episode order last May. This wasn’t news too many people found surprising – outside of how large the number was – because Rick and Morty was coined as the No. 1 TV show for millennials.

Solar Opposites will be joining the Hulu library to sit beside animated series including South Park, Bob’s Burgers, and Rick and Morty. The new series is slated for a 2020 premiere.

As an added bonus for Hulu and Netflix, both Justin and Alex are versatile voice actors too. Big things are on the horizon for both streaming giants.

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