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LOS ANGELES — A Utah native followed his dream to work in the entertainment industry, creating his own film and video game design company.
Now, the company’s first project is headed to Netflix.
“The Dragon Prince” debuts on Netflix on Friday, and the series’ executive producer Justin Santistevan was born and raised in Sandy.
The series tells the story of a world where magical creatures have been separated from humans. The king of the dragons guards a river of lava that divides the lands.
A human tricks and kills the dragon king, stealing his last egg in the process. Now, a war has broken out, and “The Dragon Prince” follows the story of the characters who want to end the conflict.
Santistevan founded Wonderstorm in 2015 with Aaron Ehasz, who worked as a writer for “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” and Justin Richmond, who worked on the video game “Uncharted 3.” Wonderstorm was founded to tell ambitious stories like “The Dragon Prince,” Santistevan said.
“We love fantasy as a genre,” he said. “We love rich worlds and stories that reward you for digging in, where you pay attention to details.”
They started developing the show as soon as Wonderstorm was created. Ehasz and Richmond are co-creators of the show, but Santistevan weighed in on creative aspects of the show and maintained relationships with the animators in Vancouver, Canada, he said.
Santistevan said he met Ehasz when he returned to business school at Stanford. The two met the week before school started while at a playground with their kids. During that first meeting, they discussed wanting to tell stories like the one that eventually became “The Dragon Prince,” according to Santistevan.
He said it’s exciting to have a platform with as wide a reach as Netflix be interested in his company’s first project.
“It’s been pretty awesome, to say the least,” he said. “We went in with a vision and a story and some art, and we were able to convince (Netflix) the story we wanted to tell was one that they would hopefully enjoy and their audience would enjoy.”
The show is similar to “Avatar: The Last Airbender” in terms of tone and feel, Santistevan said. He considers it in a PG-13 range, but it’s appropriate for most kids, he said.
In the coming months, Wonderstorm will also release a companion video game for “The Dragon Prince” that is just as important to understanding the story as the show, Santistevan said.
As a lover of video games since childhood, Santistevan said he’s fortunate to be able to find work in the video game and entertainment industry.
“For me, it was really about chasing my passion,” he said.
For others looking to break into the entertainment industry, Santistevan said it’s important to find out what you like to do and look for opportunities to do that whenever you can.
“Great ideas can come from everywhere,” Santistevan said. “It’s never too early to start.”
