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Netflix released one of the best animated series on television today when Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Trollhunters’ premiered this past holiday season. From the story to the characters to animation, the show about a young human that is tasked with taking up an ancient mantle to protect both his world and the world of trolls from evil while still going to school and being like every other fifteen year old is a triumph reminiscent of the classic animated Amblin Entertainment films like ‘An Americal Tail’, ‘The Land Before TIme’, and ‘We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story’. Although, following the unfortunate death of star Anton Yelchin, fans were worried that the heart and soul of the show would no longer be present if it were renewed for a second season. Well, the filmmaker recently shared some relatively good news on that front.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Del Toro revealed that not only would ‘Trollhunters’ be receiving a second season but that the new episodes would also feature Yelchin’s voice. And before you start thinking of some super high tech solution to keep the actor’s voice around despite him no longer being alive, there’s actually a pretty simple answer to the whole thing. As the fan favorite director reveals, he and his team have actually been working past the first season from the start: 

“We’ve been working on a second season for a while now because we knew that if everything went right, we could proceed. We’re going to go ahead and now continue, rather than start, because we’ve been doing it for more than a year. The reality and the beauty of this is that we can continue not only the storyline and the characters, but we have a huge swath of work from Anton that allows us to continue Anton through more than half the season.

From the beginning when we planned the writers’ room, we set out a map of 52 episodes, and created arcs that break every 13, and those were planned four years ago. So we have been recording Kelsey Grammer, Anton, Ron Perlman, Clancy Brown, everybody involved in the series for years and years. And there was a break in the arc in the right episode that allows us to preserve all the work that Anton did that was phenomenal. At the end of recording sessions, Anton did one of the most complex episodes and then he looked at the pilot, complete, and there was a great moment in which he was able to see the work and do a really complicated episode in which he did multiple voices and we were all so proud and so close when we lost him. And now I can tell you, we’re not only going to second season, but we’re going to be able to preserve a really large part of it with Anton’s voice.”

Naturally, one has to wonder what would happen after the crew has exhausted their supply of back-logged work since they’re not quite at that 52 episode goal just yet. Well, Del Toro alludes to an upcoming event that would allow them to change Jim’s voice actor without missing a beat. While it will be disappointing that Yelchin won’t be around to continue what he started, it is sort of serendipitous the way everything worked out for the show. 

Are you excited to see more ‘Trollhunters’ on Netflix? And how do you feel about Anton Yelchin’s performance living on? Let us know in the comments. 

horizontal lineDespite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram