CRITICAL ROLE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA SERIES

The studio also wanted to show it was making a big commitment to adult animation: “One of the best ways to signal to a community that they can look forward to this being an ongoing series is to do multiple seasons.”Ĭritical Role has “built these characters to be this true dysfunctionally humorous family,” Wolfe says. “Those fan bases become our biggest advocates.”Īmazon picked up two seasons from the get-go because there are economic efficiencies in ordering multiple seasons of an animated series, Sanders notes. “We are always looking for opportunities that start with impassioned fan bases,” says Vernon Sanders, co-head of television at Amazon Studios. Eventually Amazon Studios ordered a total of 24 episodes across two seasons, well more than the Critical Role team ever dreamed possible. It hit that goal in less than an hour and ended up receiving an eye-popping $11,385,449 from 88,887 backers - a total that still holds the crowdfunding site’s record for the most money raised for a film or video project.Ĭritical Role CEO Travis Willingham Robyn Von SwankĪfter the explosion of fan support, Melissa Wolfe, Amazon Studios’ head of animation and family, reached out to Critical Role’s Sam Riegel (who was directing some projects for Amazon at the time) to propose turning “Vox Machina” into a full-blown series. Originally, it was seeking to raise $750,000 to produce a half-hour “Vox Machina” special. The project hit Amazon’s radar after Critical Role launched a Kickstarter campaign in March 2019. “We’ve only started to scratch the surface.” “The animated series for us is a real line of demarcation,” says Willingham, who in addition to serving as CEO voices several of the show’s characters. The show, produced with animation studio Titmouse (“Big Mouth,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks”), could mark a turning point for Critical Role in breaking into the pop-culture zeitgeist beyond its current fan base. It follows a band of misfit adventurers who, in order to pay off their mounting bar tab, find themselves on a quest to save the realm of Exandria from dark magical forces. Next year, Critical Role will hit a new milestone with the release of its first animated series on Amazon Prime Video: “The Legend of Vox Machina,” based on its first campaign and set to premiere worldwide on Feb. 21 with an episode that will be simulcast at 30 Cinemark theaters nationwide. The show’s team has produced more than 1,000 hours of improvisational gameplay over 251 episodes across two D&D campaigns - and it’s gearing up to launch the yearslong Campaign 3, which premieres Oct.

CRITICAL ROLE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA UPGRADE

Six years later, the core of Critical Role’s appeal hasn’t really changed, although the studio sets have gotten a serious upgrade since those early days. And we thought, ‘Is that a good idea to put something we love online for the internet to tear apart?’” When they decided to turn Critical Role into a livestreamed show, Mercer says, “We thought nobody would care. “It was just going to be one night of dumb fun, but we kept doing it.” “It was an excuse to hang out together,” says cast member Liam O’Brien of the original D&D gathering. apartment of Matthew Mercer, Critical Role’s long-standing dungeon master, and Marisha Ray, who is now the company’s creative director they then moved to the house of Travis Willingham (now CEO) and Laura Bailey (who handles C.R.’s merchandise business). began streaming shows on Twitch and YouTube, it started as a group of friends who knew each other from voice-over gigs in animation and video games playing D&D together. In a livestreamed event from a dimly lit studio in Burbank, eight players sat at a table immersed in a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game for nearly three hours - their first foray in a form of storytelling that would bloom into an indie media empire, complete with an upcoming Amazon show.īefore C.R. On the evening of March 12, 2015, Critical Role had its first public showing.

Critical role legend of vox machina