Invincible almost had a live-action film 20 years before hit animated series

Skybound CEO David Alpert sat down with Dexerto to discuss the long journey in adapting Invincible into the hit animated series it now. It turns out, it all started with a failed live-action film that was initially pitched almost 20 years ago.

Invincible has become a massive hit since its debut in 2021. Despite a long wait for Season 2 to kick off in 2023, the show is more popular than ever. Rest assured, more is already confirmed to be on the way.

While we now live in an age where the animation medium is more diverse than ever and filled with unique projects, some of which are purely catered towards a more adult audience, creating an adaptation that was faithful to Robert Kirkman’s comic book source material was no easy sell for Skybound.

During an interview at Gamescom LATAM, David Alpert, CEO and co-founder of Skybound Entertainment, admitted that developing an adaptation for Invincible has been an almost 20-year-long endeavor for the company.

Prime Video

Invincible was an overnight smash-hit for Prime Video.

“The funny thing is, we had originally put this together as a movie almost 20 years ago… I’ll leave the studio’s name out, and the executive’s names out.

“They came to us, and this is pre-MCU, and they said to us, ‘Listen, that’s amazing, but we’ve done our market research out there and audiences don’t want to see more than one superhero on screen at the same time.’”

Fast forward to 2024 and it’s safe to say, putting multiple superheroes on screen together is far from a failure. Avengers: Endgame, which featured over 60 heroes in the same frame, was one of the biggest box office successes of all time, a fact Alpert mentioned is now a fresh challenge for Invincible after finally getting the adaptation off the ground.

“We lived through the entire Avengers, so now we’re at a point where people are like, ‘Oh, well, there’s all these events with all these superheroes’ that we’re going to have to find our own lane.” 

Alpert also highlighted the other unique hurdles the team had to overcome, namely in wanting to develop an animated series that is very much built for adult audiences.

“There’s no hour-long animation, there’s no drama. So the idea of being like, ‘Hey, what if we did a show that really looked like that after-school show that we all grew up with, but we treated the characters seriously and was R-rated’?

“We’re going to punch people in the half. We’re ripping people’s heads off. We’re, going to beat them upside their heads with their arms.”

Despite the trepidation in creating a gritty animated series that still presents itself like a more conventional superhero product, Alpert and Skybound were committed to the vision Kirkman had created with the original comic book.

“We really made a push there and everyone’s like, ‘Hey, look, that’s great, love that you want to do that, how about making it half an hour? How about making it like PG 13?’ And we’re like no, it needs to be an hour, the whole point is it needs to be for adults, this is not for kids.

“So for us, it was really about we were very committed to doing it that way, but also again, the same thing, there’s been so many great superhero stories told.”

The first two seasons of Invincible are currently available to stream on Amazon Prime, with a third outing already in development.