World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has not been shy about expanding its brand beyond the wrestling mat into the film, animation, and television beyond the sport.
With the rise in popularity of the Japanese-style anime, it seems as no surprise that WWE has announced that they are expanding into the medium with a ten-episode series partnership with Crunchyroll.
According to Sports Rush, WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan made the announcement during a webcast of the WWE’s first quarter 2021 results.
“As we continued to expand WWE’s brand beyond the ring, we remained focused on developing the slate of original programming from WWE Studios,” he said. “We sold a multi-episode anime series to Crunchyroll, which is now owned by Sony.”
There is nothing else known about the series or who will be featured in it, but no doubt the success of such anime features like ‘Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train‘ made this deal more lucrative.
As SR notes, several of their wrestlers such as Sasha Banks, the New Day, Keith Lee, Ronda Rousey, Rhea Ripley, and others have worn anime-inspired costumes for various WrestleMania events.
This is not the first time the WWE has made a foray into animation. They have partnered with Warner Media for crossovers with several of their Hanna-Barbera Production characters including Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons.
John Cena, The Undertaker, Triple H, Paige, and Michael Cole starred in the Sony Pictures Animation feature ‘Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania.’ Roman Reigns is set to appear in the Paramount Animation feature ‘Rumble.’
Seth Green has also worked with WWE Studios to produce ‘Camp WWE’ an animated series that features several retired wrestlers as themselves including Ric Flair, Sgt. Slaughter, and Jake Roberts in a summer camp setting.
WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon has made appearances in ‘Surf’s Up 2’ and ‘Camp WWE’ as himself.
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