7 Years Later, Netflix Officially Confirms 'Star Trek: Picard' Showrunner's Fantasy Series Is Still Alive

Magic: The Gathering has been a smash hit since the collectible card game first debuted in 1993. The franchise has since expanded to include comic books, novels, and even video games (one starring a then-unknown Rhea Seehorn). However, Magic has struggled to make the leap from card to screen, as a number of movie and TV projects have fallen by the wayside over the years. Now, however, it looks like it might finally be in the works.The Magic: The Gathering animated series was first announced by Netflix in 2019; Joe and Anthony Russo were slated to produce it. Two years later, they announced that Brandon Routh had been cast to play the lead; the series was subsequently written and recorded, but was cancelled, as per Routh in 2024, as part of a mass cancellation of many of Netflix's animated projects. However, in 2024, Netflix announced that the series was back on their release slate, and would now be showrun by Star Trek: Picard's Terry Matalas. However, there has been no news of the project since then. Meanwhile, plans for a Magic: The Gathering movie have been on the drawing board for over a decade; at last report, Matt Johnson (Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie) was slated to direct it. It seems that Netflix has pulled the series out of the graveyard once more. In a recent press release touting its slate of popular animated programs, the streamer listed Magic: The Gathering as being "upcoming," which is a more optimistic prognosis than the series has received in some time. It's not a surprise that the property is finally making its way to the screen; the game brings in $1 billion USD in revenue every year, and Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that produces it, estimates that there are 50 million Magic players worldwide. Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz Which Lord of the RingsRace Do You Belong To? Hobbit · Elf · Dwarf · Man · Orc Middle-earth is home to many peoples — the courageous, the ancient, the stubborn, the ambitious, and the wretched. Ten questions will determine which race truly claims your soul. The answer may surprise you. Or it may confirm what you already suspected. 🌿Hobbit 🌟Elf ⚒️Dwarf ⚔️Man 💀Orc 01 What does your ideal day look like? How we rest reveals as much as how we fight. 02 How do you feel about the passing of time? Our relationship with mortality shapes everything we value. 03 Danger is approaching. Your first instinct is to: Fight, flight, or something in between — it's more revealing than you'd think. 04 You stumble upon a great treasure. What do you feel? What we desire — and what we do about it — is the true test. 05 How important is community and belonging to you? No race of Middle-earth is truly alone — but some prefer it that way. 06 How ambitious are you, honestly? Ambition is neither virtue nor vice — it depends entirely on what you want. 07 Where do you feel most at home in the natural world? Middle-earth is vast — and every race has its place within it. 08 What kind of strength do you most respect? Every race defines strength differently — and they're all at least a little right. 09 What do you want to leave behind when you're gone? Legacy is the story we tell ourselves about why any of this matters. 10 Be honest — what do you actually want most out of life? The truest question always comes last. Middle-earth Has Spoken You Belong To…The race that claimed the most of your answers is your true kin. If two tied, both are shown — you walk between worlds. ◆ A TIE — YOU WALK BETWEEN TWO RACES ◆ 🌿Your Race The HobbitsYou are, at your core, a creature of comfort, community, and quiet joy — and there is nothing small about that. Hobbits are proof that heroism does not require ambition, that the bravest heart can beat inside the most unassuming chest. You value good food, warm hearths, close friends, and a world that stays largely untroubled by dark lords and quests. When adventure does find you — and it will — you rise to it not because you sought it, but because the people you love needed you to. That is not ordinary. That is the rarest kind of courage in all of Middle-earth. 🌟Your Race The ElvesAncient, graceful, and carrying a weight of memory most mortals cannot fathom, you are one of the Elves. You see the world in its fullness — its beauty, its impermanence, the unbearable ache of watching everything you love eventually fade. You pursue perfection not from pride, but because excellence is how you honour the time you have been given. Others may see you as remote or melancholy. They are not wrong, exactly. But they mistake depth for distance. You feel everything — which is precisely why you have learned to carry it so quietly. ⚒️Your Race The DwarvesStubborn, proud, fiercely loyal, and possessed of a work ethic that would exhaust most other races before breakfast — you are Dwarf-kind through and through. You do not ask for approval and you do not offer it cheaply. Your loyalty, once given, is given for life. Your grudges last longer. You love deeply and defend ferociously, and the things you build — with your hands, with your sweat, with generations of accumulated craft — are made to last. Not for glory. Because anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and you have never once done anything by half measures. ⚔️Your Race The Race of MenMortal, ambitious, flawed, and magnificent — you belong to the most complicated race in Middle-earth, and that complexity is your greatest strength. Men are capable of cowardice and extraordinary bravery, of cruelty and breathtaking sacrifice, sometimes within the same breath. You feel the urgency of your finite years, and it drives you. You want to matter. You want to leave something behind. You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you. Tolkien called mortality the Gift of Men — not a curse, but a fire that burns bright precisely because it does not burn forever. That fire is you. 💀Your Race The OrcsBrutal, survivalist, and contemptuous of anything that can't defend itself — you answered with the instincts of an Orc, and there is a certain savage honesty in that. You do not dress up your desires in polite language or pretend you want things you don't. You want power, survival, and to never be at the bottom of any hierarchy ever again. Orcs are not evil by nature — they were made from something that was once good, and broken into this shape by forces they did not choose. What remains is fierce, territorial, and deeply aware that the world is not kind. You've made your peace with that. The question is what you do with it. A collectible card game introduced by Wizards of the Coast in 1993, Magic: The Gathering takes place in a realm of high fantasy. Players take on the role of powerful wizards known as Planeswalkers; they tap the energy, or "mana" of the realm to cast spells and unleash magical creatures against their foes. In recent years, the game has features special sets of cards from an array of franchises, including Marvel Comics, Star Trek, and Masters of the Universe. A Magic: The Gathering animated series is in development at Netflix. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.