If you’re like me and you’re a fan of the Castlevania video games but feel a sense of dread about the upcoming Paul W.S. Anderson Castlevania movie, here is a bit of news that may yet bring joy to your heart. Konami have licensed out the animated rights for the game franchise to Panacea Entertainment and Project 51 Productions, who will be creating a Castlevania direct to DVD feature film and a TV series. While the TV series is being aimed at kids and has been described as “Castlevania Jr.”, the animated feature film is going to be for mature audiences, with higher production values and may even end up on the big screen.

The most exciting part of this announcement for me personally is the fact that they have recruited legendary comic writer Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, Planetary) to pen the movie. Artist James Jean will serve as art director. I was a little worried that they would go in a full anime direction with this thing (it is a Japanese franchise after all), however, chairman and CEO of Panacea Entertainment Eric Gardner, had this to say: “I think there will be anime elements of it, but it’s going to be more hints of anime as opposed to traditional, full-blown anime… we’re hoping it has a very distinctive, unique style that’s instantly recognizable as what will become the animated Castlevania brand.” There’s a lot of ways that this could go wrong, but I still think it has more potential than a Paul W.S. Anderson live action flick. I just hope this doesn’t end up being an Ultimate Avengers style disappointment.