EverQuest : The Animated Series? It almost happened

Ever wish EverQuest was an animated series? Or a movie?

You aren’t the only one. It’s an idea that’s been tossed around before. And it came pretty close to happening. As Seen on Episode 12 of The EverQuest Show

The EverQuest Show talked to Jason Wages, an artist, screenwriter and actor, who also had dreams of seeing EQ become a television series.

Jason was always a fan of EverQuest and began making fan art for the game for his friends and fellow players.

“EverQuest just gave me a great direction to focus it. I totally fell in love with it.”

With his artistic ability, and love for EverQuest and animation, he came up with an idea.

It Began As A Joke

“I always dreamed of EverQuest becoming an animated series. I was a big fan of Batman the animated series. So I thought I’m going to make a (web) page that looks absolutely realistic. So that it looks like on April 1st, EverQuest is an animated show.”

So what began as a joke, took several weeks of artistic creation and planning.

Jason created a very convincing website listing all the intricate details of the FIVE seasons of EverQuest: The Animated Adventures, airing on Cartoon Network.

He created detailed artwork of the characters, their backstory, alignment, and synopses of each episode and the overall story of series.

The (Fake) website even thanked the EQAA viewers for watching, and how thrilled producer “Lawrence Tureaud” was about the series.

Lawrence Tureaud is the given name of the actor Mr. T.

Creating The Art

Because Jason was such a fan of Batman the Animated Series, he was familiar with the very sytlistic artwork that goes into the animation made famous by Bruce Timm.

“It’s almost like a template. The bodies always have a very specific shape. Very simple lines. Very easy to color.”

“So for me it helped, first of all, that everyone knows what Batman the Animated Series is. And second of all, it was easier for me to create as a concept for the original parody.”

Jason created dozens of characters. Several are notable NPCs from the game itself, including many of the gods of Norrath.

He also created new individual characters that would make up the story of EQAA.

In addition to all of the different character art pieces, back story and plot lines were developed.

His parody was becoming a full story.

The Series Comes Together

Every season of the EverQuest Animated Adventures television series was built around an era in the game.

Season 1’s plot involved the original content of the game. Season 2 revolved around the Ruins of Kunark. Season 3 was in Velious and on through Season 5 in Planes of Power.

The parody was so convincing because Jason had created a short synopsis of every single episode in each season, down to the episode number.

The Parody Goes Live

Through a contact at Caster’s Realm, Jason Wages convinced the webmaster of that site to post his parody website link.

With reluctance the site was posted, but with the disclaimer that this was indeed a fake site!

There was even a flash to “Yes, It’s Fake” on the parody site.

But that didn’t stop the flood of excitement when the site went live.

On the first day my site came up, I had over 800 emails. I got 10,000 hits almost immediately.

“Oh my god, I’m checking out Cartoon Network’s schedule and I don’t see it! When is it airing?”

“How can I get the DVDs?”

So many people were just enthralled by it. So many people just went crazy for it, wondering “Why can’t I find this on Cartoon Network?”

I thought there might be something to this. This may not be just a one-shot, flash-in-the-pan gag.
Jason Wages

Initially the official EverQuest logo was used in the artwork for the series. but Sony Online Entertainment, the producer of EverQuest, asked that Jason change it to a different logo.

So a similar looking logo was created, but different from the official EverQuest logo.

From Parody to A Green Light

What began as a parody now seemed popular enough to have the backing of thousands of EverQuest fans that craved an animated series.

So Jason took his parody and went a step further. He created an entire series document, outlining the series plotlines, stories, further detailing the characters and even created a 2 episode pilot complete with full script.

Script of the Pilot Episode of EverQuest The Animated Adventures

Armed with weeks worth of work and a healthy 136 page Series Bible, he set out to see if a television adaptation of EQ could become a reality.

A few attempts at internal contacts at Sony proved fruitless. Sony had reached out to Cartoon Network with a copy of the game, but little production detail. Cartoon Network was not interested.

Eventually, the VP of marketing for Sony had a contact within Sony Pictures. After some discussion and pitches, a green light for the show was given!

However, staffing changes led to the project falling through and it was shelved.

Until…

EverQuest: The Movie?

In 2007, Avi Arad, former head of Marvel, was approaching several game studios about making a blockbuster movie around a video game IP.

EverQuest was approached and it was rumored that Avi Arad and Columbia PIctures had struck a deal to make the EverQuest Movie!

A writer for the movie was also tossed around. Michael Gordon, of 300 fame, would adapt the game for the big screen.

As excitement was building for EQ’s big screen production, the EverQuest Animated series sat on the shelf with the expectation that “Once EverQuest the Movie gets made, then we’ll be able to look at making this animated series.”

Unfortunately, we’ve never seen an EQ movie, and the animated series was literally nothing more than just a joke.