Netflix has had a spate of successful comic book adaptations. So, when the streamer announced it was picking up Jeff Lemire’s popular post-apocalyptic series Sweet Tooth it made sense. But this adaptation has a twist. Far from the dark origins of the comic, this is a Robert Downey Jr.-produced family-friendly adventure series.
Netflix
If you haven’t read the original Sweet Tooth series it centers on the world after a drastic cataclysmic event. People and animal human hybrids are common. Gus is a deer-faced boy who embarks on a dark and dangerous quest after his the brutal slaying of his father.
So, fans of that darkly beautiful Vertigo comic might be surprised by the Netflix press release’s description. “Sweet Tooth is the broad appeal, family-friendly, storybook adventure of Gus — part deer, part boy — who leaves his home in the forest to find the outside world ravaged by a cataclysmic event. He joins a ragtag family of humans and animal-children hybrids like himself in search of answers about this new world and the mystery behind his hybrid origins.”
DC Comics, Vertigo
This is a very interesting direction for Netflix as their most high profile and popular comic book series have verged on the dark. But the streamer did recently have the success of Locke & Key which reimagined a horror comic as an Amblin-style romp. In fact that could likely have inspired Netflix to pick up the series which was originally set at Hulu.
One of the most exciting things about this project is it’s coming from Jim Mickle. You might know the director from films like In the Shadow of the Moon and Cold In July! Mickle brings some real horror and noir chops to the project. Whatever happens we can’t wait to see how this intriguing adaptation shakes out.
Header Image: Netflix
