Golden Axe Creators Explain Why Death Adder Has Already Been Defeated | Interview

Photo Credit: Paramount Plus

Golden Axe creators and executive producers Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler spoke with ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese about the new Paramount+ TV show. The duo discussed their approach to the series, why it’s not an origin story, and more. The fantasy show is now streaming on Paramount+.

“In a hilarious homage to Sega’s iconic 1989 video game, Golden Axe follows legendary warriors Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, and Gilius Thunderhead as they reunite to save Yuria from the evil giant Death Adder, who just won’t seem to stay dead. Their quest is complicated by Hampton Squib, an inexperienced and wildly underprepared adventurer whose dream of heroism far exceeds his abilities. As they journey through a dangerous fantasy world, the group faces formidable enemies, unexpected allies, and mounting chaos driven by their clashing personalities. Forced to work together despite their flaws, they must find a way to stop Death Adder once and for all. Blending epic action with irreverent humor, Golden Axe explores what it truly means to be a hero,” says the official synopsis.

Tyler Treese: Mike, I like that everybody has a history in this show. This isn’t an origin story. It starts after they had beat Death Adder before. I thought that was an interesting choice because the old arcade game, the lore is about that deep. It’s just they team up, they beat the bad guy. There’s not too much to those old games. Can you speak to that choice and just having those pre-existing relationships already ingrained so you can kind of play with that?

Mike McMahan: Yeah, I think that that was a big… We wanted to keep everything we liked from the game, but we wanted to… What is this playthrough?

This show is the current playthrough, and Hampton is the player, right? He’s the person who’s new to this world. He’s the one who wants to be a hero. And he’s kind of choosing Gilius as the person he’s playing it through. And that’s what Joe and I both used to do while playing this game back in the day.

And on top of that, we wanted to tell a story about these characters where this world was really real for them. These are characters that are fighting a snake demon in armor over and over again. They do fight a bad guy called the Bad Brothers or Death Adder.

And so to tell a story like that, it made sense to us to be like, okay, if Gilius is feeling underappreciated, it means that he’s gone through a journey with these other characters. And so we have to come in on this world feeling really real for them.

And knowing that we could do that and have maps and fantasy tropes and all the stuff we’re pulling from the games while also telling a new story, that it was this time that you’re playing the game, felt right to us.

Joe Chandler: Yeah. And I think just to add, in the lore of the games, it’s always like, “Death Adder has returned.” You beat the bad guy, but you just can’t beat him for good.

And so it felt really easy to be like, okay, he is back. And again, it helped us launch the character story from that, as opposed to the gang gets together for the first time. It felt like it’s more honest to the game to be like, “Death Adder has returned.” That’s more the experience of the game than assembling the team.

Joe, Golden Axe is beloved certainly to gamers of a certain age like us, but it’s not currently at the top of mind for a ton of people that aren’t Sega weirdos like me. Did this seem like an interesting opportunity since it is undeniably an iconic video game franchise, but you get a chance to reintroduce it, pay tribute with Easter eggs, but it’s also a good entry point?

Joe Chandler: It’s nice that it’s a little bit out of the ether because it becomes a thing that you can be like, pull it in. There are people that I would tell about this that had no idea. And then people who’d be like, “Oh my God, Golden Axe, I used to play as the dwarf. There’s the purple guy and used to kick the guy for potions.”

The people who are excited are really excited because it’s a thing they haven’t thought about in a long time that has just triggered that upspring of emotion and memory and nostalgia. And so I think it’s super exciting.

And it’s really fun to have a thing that people don’t have a ton of like, “Oh, it’s about this, this, and this.” So it leaves room for invention for us, for the artists, for the writers. Yeah, it was a super exciting thing to be able to work on.

Mike, I like how you guys use the video game references and Easter eggs. You make a lot of funny jokes, like Ax Battler having axe in his name but using a sword. Those jokes are smart references, but they also work if you haven’t played the arcade games. So could you just speak to your general philosophy when it comes to putting in these Easter eggs and references?

Mike McMahan: Yeah, I think that you want to feel like the characters have lived in this world and that when they’re telling jokes, it’s to make each other laugh. And so it fits into the world that they’re in.

And if you’re having them fight scary monsters, or if you’re having them want things in this world, you want to feel like this world that might be a video game to us, it’s their whole lives. You’re writing up to them.

And I think that finding that balance of, you know, are you hanging out with your funny friends on this mission? You know what I mean, on this quest?

I think we have a lot of examples of very serious versions of fantasy stuff, of swords and sorcery, of swords and sandals, of D&D and Lord of the Rings-style. But I think that getting to do both, getting to do an animated comedy that feels like it’s a fun hang with people you actually like that are imperfect, and they get to talk like us and you get to feel the fun of these actors at the same time.

I think telling stories that feel really, really human and make you laugh and make you feel like a warm hug. There’s this hanging-out aspect of it while also giving you chopping skeletons in half and dragons blasting fire. Getting both at the same time is what we deserve. That’s a really fun mix of genre and also character stuff.

Chandler: Yeah. I’d say that Ax Battler thing you’re talking about specifically, that was on the list of things that we wanted to reference, to talk about, but we used it in a moment where Tyris is mad at him and is trying to hurt him.

It’s like, we wouldn’t have used it if we hadn’t found a reason for the character to say it. It was not a thing we would have just brought up. It was used to further a story.

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Thanks to Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler for taking the time to talk about Golden Axe.

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