In a recent interview, producer and animation consultant Marisa Balkus shared that her former employer, Crunchyroll, attempted to produce the Splinter Cell: Deathwatch and Captain Laserhawk animated series, but was outbid both times by Netflix. Balkus’ production credits include Onyx Equinox at Crunchyroll; she also oversaw the production of Arcane Season 2, Devil May Cry, Blood of Zeus Seasons 2-3, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, and ironically, Captain Laserhawk, following her departure from Crunchyroll to Netflix.
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Speaking on her move from Crunchyroll to Netflix, Balkus said, “You know, I hadn’t been thinking about my exit until the right opportunity showed up, and in this case Netflix was looking to hire an executive on what at the time was their anime team, and I thought ‘Oh damn, they’re doing what I do right now but at a massive scale.’“
“This is the company that has outbid me on a lot of pitches that I’ve wanted to buy, like Splinter Cell and Captain Laserhawk,” she continued, “and you know any show we wanted to get at Crunchyroll, they’d come in just overpay for, and we’re like, ‘Ah, they took it away again!’ So, it was one of those, ‘Well if you can’t beat them…. You should join them!’ type of moments. So I saw the opportunity and I went for it.“
Balkus added that she loved the experience and the intensity of working at a company like Netflix, crediting Crunchyroll’s culture and its numerous business streams for helping her to adapt. You can also check out comments from Crunchyroll’s current Senior Director of Global SVOD Customer Experience, Luciane Carillo, who moved in the opposite direction from Netflix to Crunchyroll. She praised Crunchyroll’s structure but said that people at Crunchyroll aren’t yet ready for Netflix’s level of blunt feedback that she experienced and thrived on.
Balkus also recalled Netflix’s anime team becoming the adult animation team, and the experience of inheriting a huge slate of projects following her move, which included Captain Laserhawk:
“I was basically inheriting a slate — Captain Laserhawk by the way was one of those shows that I inherited and I was like, ‘Hey, I remember you buddy! I remember when Adi Shankar pitched this to me back in the day when I was at Crunchyroll.’ So it was funny. It was kind of like saying hello to a bunch of creatives that I had already known and worked with intimately in a different capacity, and then joining their actual shows.“
Other interview topics included insight into the process of turning pitches into productions, the common pitfalls, how Sofia Alexander’s Onyx Equinox came to fruition at Crunchyroll Studios, the stress of the industry, taking time off, and her current work as a freelance animation production consultant at Culture Misfit.
Source: brandon violette YouTube Channel
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