Exclusive: How Three Surprising Stars Helped Adi Shankar Turn Assassin’s Creed Into A Frog

Captain Laserhawk Bullfrog sitting

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is all about subverting expectations. The animated series – based on Ubisoft characters from a wide range of IP – premiered late last month on Netflix, and saw familiar characters portrayed in bizarre new ways. From violent Power Rangers-inspired Rainbow Six operators to a drug-addled Rayman, the series revels in taking the characters you know and love and presenting them in the strangest way possible.

One of the more bizarre inclusions is the series’ Assassin’s Creed representation. Almost everything else in the series is somewhat grounded in its portrayal of well-known Ubisoft characters, but Assassin’s Creed gets a transformation that nobody expected: a French anthropomorphic frog called Bullfrog, trained in the ways of the Assassin Brotherhood.

GLHF had the opportunity to have a chat with Captain Laserhawk creator Adi Shankar about the show, how it came to be, and what, exactly, inspired him to turn Assassin’s Creed into a frog. We can now exclusively reveal how Bullfrog came to be, and it’s probably not what you’d expect. Shankar says that Bullfrog was born into existence through his interactions with three people: Kanye West, Marvel Studios founder David Maisel, and legendary comics creator Todd McFarlane.

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Shankar recalls that shortly after he moved to Los Angeles, some 15 years ago at this point, he used to cold-call Todd McFarlane. Shankar had always been drawn to alternate takes of existing properties – things like DC’s Elseworlds and Marvel’s What If series – and you can see that in his work on the Bootleg Universe. It was McFarlane’s dark interpretation of The Wizard of Oz, Twisted Land of Oz, that really captured Shankar’s attention.

Thankfully, McFarlane took Shankar’s calls, and the two would spend hours talking.

“Todd was gracious enough to talk to me for hours on a pretty consistent basis, and through these chats, he shared insights and wisdom that were so profound to me that I regard him as one of my earliest mentors,” Shankar tells us, “Although I’d previously been drawn to ‘alternate takes’ … directly engaging with a creator who’d personally ventured into such territory reshaped my perspective.

“It sowed the seeds of aspiration in me, allowing me to envision a future where I could embark on similar creative journeys.”

Years later, Shankar was in the process of pitching Captain Laserhawk to Ubisoft, after having a few Bootleg Universe projects under his belt. At around this time, he went to the grocery store with David Maisel for a sandwich, and got to chatting about how to approach such a project. Maisel told Shankar that he needed to move past being just scrappy — saying that scrappiness could be an asset, but it shouldn’t be a limitation.

“David, who literally engineered the business apparatus around the MCU, told me to focus on the big picture and stop being so scrappy,” Shankar recalls, “Feeling somewhat defiant, I told him to f**k off.”

Maisel, seemingly unhappy with that response, decided to take a more active approach, and introduced Shankar to someone who had similarly transcended his scrappiness: Kanye West. Shankar and West hit it off, and Shankar was brought on to be a creative consultant for the Yeezy brand. It was during a visit to the Yeezy design shop that Shankar realized Maisel was right: he could still create subversive, unexpected, and groundbreaking art while working within the confines of a huge corporation.

“When I visited the vast design shop, filled with myriad prototypes of the Yeezy shoes, it was a huge eye-opener. It exemplified the notion for me that one could work within the confines of a massive corporate structure and yet still push the envelope to create something unexpected and groundbreaking.

“This example of an artist using the infrastructure and marketing prowess of a multinational corporation to disseminate an innovative product with a singular vision gave me the confidence to take the wild swings we took with Laserhawk. The power of that juxtaposition is embodied in Bullfrog, this disarmingly sweet yet formidable warrior, part of a huge global brand and yet distinct and original.”

The contrast, Shankar says, is at the core of the Bullfrog character. At first glance, he’s a cute little frog playing dress-up in Assassin’s clothes, but if you dig a little deeper, you see a character that’s fiercely loyal and deeply devoted to the Assassins Brotherhood. He’s a scrappy, subversive guy that still works within the confines of a huge IP.

“I believe the Assassin's Creed franchise is rooted in some profound truths, and those truths are embedded within the lore,” Shankar says, “For some, the idea of an Assassin frog might appear "out there," but truth has a resonance that, in my opinion, has contributed to the immense success and popularity of Assassin’s Creed, and pairing it with an unexpected character like Bullfrog lends him that resonance as well.”

Bullfrog wasn’t originally intended to be French, either. Shankar tells us that the production for Captain Laserhawk worked somewhat backwards compared to most animation productions — normally voice actors are cast before storyboarding, but in this case, the storyboards were finished before the voice cast was finalized.

In lieu of a voice actor for Bullfrog, creative director Yves Bigerel, known primarily as Balak, provided interim voices for all the characters while storyboarding was completed. Shankar fell in love with Balak’s rendition of the frog assassin, and the rest is history.

“When I heard Balak’s interpretation of Bullfrog, it was a revelation,” Shankar says, “Immediately the character was reborn, exhibiting a vocal layer that we hadn't foreseen. From that defining juncture, not only did Balak seamlessly inhabit the role of Bullfrog, he also inadvertently crafted the character's French essence.”

“I'm grateful I got to bring this vision to fruition. I'm elated to see Bullfrog striking such a chord with our audience.”

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is available to stream now exclusively on Netflix.