Netflix’s Nimona nearly didn’t happen – comic’s TV adaptation went on a chaotic journey, just like its spunky, destructive lead character

The main character of the graphic novel Nimona is a shape-shifter: sometimes a girl, other times an animal, always a spunky agent of chaos. One day, she inserts herself into the life of knight-turned-villain Ballister Blackheart to become his sidekick. Nimona is impulsive, playful and destructive. She is also enthusiastic about depravity in general, including the act of killing people. One Nimona review that remained with creator ND Stevenson over the years came from a friend’s five-year-old niece. “Her feedback was, ‘I like Nimona because she’s mean,’” Stevenson says. “I always remembered that because it’s a five-year-old’s review, but there’s something very true in that. “We don’t feel like we can express those dark, messy emotions. Nimona does things that we are not able to do, but she’s a catharsis.” A long-awaited television adaptation, now on Netflix, marks the conclusion of a uniquely tumultuous journey. Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, the feature-length animated Nimona, which premiered in June at France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, survived a mega media merger, changes in creative leadership, a global pandemic and even a studio shutdown just as the film was coming together. While there were periods of uncertainty along the way, Stevenson, who is also a co-producer of the adaptation, believed in Nimona and trusted the team that was fighting for the film. “I think I knew that something really special was going to happen to make sure that it was seen. Nothing was going to keep this movie in a box,” Stevenson says. A story that subverts even bedrock ideas of heroism, Nimona engages with larger questions around assigned labels, personal identity and our capacity for change. Its resonant themes connected with new audiences, and by Stevenson’s last year at university, the series he conceived as a teenager had piqued the interest of publishers. Released as a bound volume by publisher HarperCollins in 2015, Nimona was named a National Book Award finalist in the United States. Directors Bruno and Quane were in production on their animated feature Spies in Disguise when they heard that Nimona was headed for development at Fox-owned Blue Sky Studios. It was slated to be a 16-month project. “They asked if we wouldn’t mind just sitting in on some intensive story days, and just really try and dig in and find what that through line [of the film] was,” Quane says. It is not uncommon for films, especially those with rich source material, to become unfocused over the course of production. Robert Baird, an animation veteran who was co-president of Blue Sky at the time, says that creative teams can lose their objectivity as they get lost in the minutiae. “We had gone down a lot of different roads, which is what you have to do, and knew some of the areas were working and some weren’t working. “Nick and Troy have an incredible ability to watch where you are in a movie and say, ‘Guys, you’re forgetting what it’s about.’” But when it finally seemed like Nimona was overcoming its creative hurdles, Disney – which had taken over Blue Sky when it acquired 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019 – shut it all down. Makers of Disney and Pixar’s Elemental on tolerance and ‘breaking the rules’ Without the studio, the official Nimona team dwindled from around 300 artists and production staff to a core creative team of 10 people, including Baird, producer Julie Zackary and former Blue Sky co-president Andrew Millstein. Armed with a set of story reels, some character models and a clear sense of Nimona’s voice – the role would eventually go to Chloë Grace Moretz – they started shopping the project around. Nimona found a champion in producer Megan Ellison of Annapurna – the production company Baird is now co-head of animation at. Ellison “was so drawn to the story, she basically said, ‘You have to make it here’”, according to Baird. The next step was securing a new studio partner to help execute the film, which turned out to be DNEG Animation. Nimona’s revival was officially announced last year, and while the final film is different from the story reels developed at Blue Sky, Baird says they share the same soul. Those familiar with the Nimona comic will notice that the film is quite different from its source material. But challenging expectations is one of the truest manifestations of its themes. “That was [the filmmakers] the whole way,” Stevenson says. “Whatever fights they were fighting, I never had to be exposed to them. I just got to see the beautiful finished product.” Stevenson, who remembers being able to hear children playing at a nearby day care while working on the comic in his flat, is looking forward to seeing how younger audiences might engage with the film. “I want to see kids playing shape-shifter on the playground,” he says. “I want to see them pretending to be dragons and running around, to see how the next generation of future storytellers respond to the movie – and to the character.”