Shortly after the release of Castlevania Season 2, executive producer Adi Shankar revealed to IGN he’s also working on a Devil May Cry animated series. Both shows will be connected as part of what Shankar refers to as “The Bootleg Multiverse,” meaning one day we may see half-demon hero Dante fighting alongside Alucard or the Belmont family.
News on the Devil May Cry front has been in short supply since then, but we have no reason to assume the project isn’t still moving forward. And thanks to Castlevania’s recently released third season, we now have a better idea of how these two shows could intertwine. Read on to learn more, but beware of spoilers for Castlevania Season 3!
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What Is the Bootleg Multiverse?
Shankar actually has a history of building shared universes out of seemingly unrelated elements. Shankar previously established his geek cred through his “Bootleg Universe” of short films. Shankar has created a series of unlicensed short films like 2012’s Punisher: Dirty Laundry, 2013’s Venom: Truth in Journalism, and 2015’s Power/Rangers and James Bond: Agent of Nothing. Each of these reinvents a popular franchise through a dark and gritty lens. And while they’re essentially fan-films, the high production value and the involvement of major Hollywood actors (including Thomas Jane reprising the role of Frank Castle and both James Van Der Beek and Katee Sackhoff starring in Power/Rangers) lends a serious dose of legitimacy to the Bootleg Universe.
Shankar is basically applying that formula on a bigger scale to his new Bootleg Multiverse. Unlike those earlier projects, series like Castlevania and Devil May Cry are authorized adaptations. The goal is to forge a tangible connection between two previously unrelated video game properties. And given that Shankar is reportedly developing at least two other video game adaptations for Netflix – Hyper Light Drifter and Assassin’s Creed – it’s possible the Bootleg Multiverse will grow beyond just Castlevania and Devil May Cry.
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Saint Germain and the Infinite Corridor
While we know Castlevania and the upcoming Devil May Cry series will be linked, up till now we haven’t had a clear sense of how that connection will work. The two franchises share certain basic similarities in terms of chronicling the adventures of monster-slaying heroes battling demons from Hell. But in terms of tone and time period, they’re very different. They aren’t even owned by the same video game publishers (Castlevania is a Konami property and Devil May Cry is owned by Capcom).
But even though new details about the Devil May Cry series remain scarce, we now have a better idea of what’s being planned. Castlevania Season 3 literally opened a door between the two worlds. And it’s all thanks to the character Saint Germain and a construct known as the Infinite Corridor.
Season 3 is very loosely based on 2005’s Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, a game which introduced both the time-traveling Count Saint Germain and the Infinite Corridor. In the game, the Infinite Corridor is merely a challenging realm full of floating platforms leading the player to a boss fight against the undead knight Dullahan. But in the animated series, the Infinite Corridor is depicted as an interdimensional realm that allows magicians to travel through time and space. It can even open portals to Hell itself, nearly leading to the resurrection of Dracula in the Season 3 finale.
Over the course of Season 3, it’s established that Germain has experience traveling through the Infinite Corridor. At some point prior to the events of the series, Germain lost a loved one in the Infinite Corridor, and he’s been trying to find a new entryway ever since. Episode 6 chronicles a psychedelic nightmare sequence as Germain’s mind is dragged through the Corridor and witnesses other worlds very different from his own. In one, he’s nearly crushed to death by a gigantic mech robot.
That sequence strongly hints that the Infinite Corridor will be the connective tissue between the two shows. Whether the events of Devil May Cry take place in the future of the Castlevania universe or on another world entirely, the Infinite Corridor can be used to bridge that gap and allow characters from one series to appear in the other. If Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha need a little help battling Carmilla and her growing vampire army in Season 4, Dante is only a wormhole away. And with Germain vanishing into the Infinite Corridor at the end of Season 3, it’s entirely possible his next appearance won’t be in a future season of Castlevania, but on Devil May Cry.
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A Devil May Cry Cameo In Netflix’s Castlevania
There appears to be at least one small but direct reference to the Devil May Cry series in Season 3. Reddit user /lucasgmkp spotted a very familiar-looking sword hidden in the background of Episode 8 (just after the 14-minute mark).
This sword is a dead ringer for Rebellion, the magical blade carried by DMC’s main hero Dante. For whatever reason, the monks of the Lindenfeld priory have come into possession of this powerful artifact. Rebellion is one of three swords forged by Dante’s demonic father Sparda. The sword may be lying in wait for Dante to come along and awaken its true power.
What’s Next for the Devil May Cry Series and the Bootleg Multiverse?
While we now know how the two wildly different worlds of Devil May Cry and Castlevania could be connected, it remains to be seen when we’ll actually see a true crossover between the two. We don’t yet have a release date for Devil May Cry Season 1, nor do we even know for sure the series will make its home on Netflix. As of the time of publish, Netflix hasn’t officially confirmed a fourth season of Castlevania, either.
Still, we have to assume there are plans in place. The introduction of the Infinite Corridor seems to be the first key step in introducing a larger shared universe. As we’ve explored in the past, there are other ways in which Castlevania and Devil May Cry could become linked. There are definite similarities between Devil May Cry’s Dante and Castlevania’s Alucard that would be worth exploring in a crossover storyline. Even if the two series never participate in a full-blown crossover, both are steeped in demonic creatures and supernatural magic. The events of one series could wind up influencing the other as the power structure of Hell shifts.
In short, the possibilities are limitless. We can only hope that we’ll start to get a much better idea of what the future holds for the Bootleg Multiverse soon.
For more on Castlevania, check out our full Season 3 review and read our explainer breakdown of Season 3’s dramatic ending.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com How Castlevania: Season 3 Opens a Door to Devil May Cry