Kid Cudi and Kenya Barris are already considering an "intergalactic" season 2

Although they've both embraced the tenfold medium, "Entergalactic" creators Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi and Kenya Barris didn't originally envision their TV event being animated. "We've been convinced by some execs at Netflix, Mike Moon, Elizabeth Porter, maybe this is something for animation," Barris told IndieWire on Zoom. “And we started talking about how we both loved 'Heavy Metal', we loved 'Bambi' and 'Moana', and those things live on forever. And so, when you put them together sometimes, it can be something amazing. »

What started as an idea for an anthology series where, according to Mescudi, "the guiding line, the theme of each episode, was love, and each episode would be a different cast, a different story", transformed in a 93-minute animated television special where he and Jessica Williams voice the characters Jabari and Meadow, two New York-based artists living in the same apartment complex, trying to figure out if they're in too much trouble to fall in love each other.

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"I was going to do six to eight episodes, and I was going to have an animated episode," Mescudi said, elaborating on his initial "Entergalactic" pitch. "So [I said] what I can do is I can take this episode and just expand it into a full series. And then that's kind of how it all came together." As for how it became a feature project again, Barris said, “It went through a few iterations. It was originally going to be a movie, and it still looks that way. We call it a TV event. We felt that was the best way to tell the story and reach as many people as possible, and fit with what Netflix needed it to be."

The 'Black-ish' creator added, "That also makes it really unique. I started in TV and will probably end up in TV, so I have a special love for that. And I think that television has gone from being the red-haired, freckled stepson to film to now being the lead, so it's a television event that we're very, very proud of."

Another innovative aspect of "Entergalactic" is how it works as visuals for Kid Cudi's new album of the same name. "I've always been in this place where I'm like, 'What else can I do? How else can I stimulate people's minds? And this whole concept of doing this show, with the music telling the story, has never been done before," Mescudi said. "We've seen visual albums, but that's just a whole other beast."