Management/production company The Collective has joined forces with Annoying Orange creator Dane Boedigheimer to create six episodes of the show, according to Deadline.
Conrad Vernon (Monsters and Aliens and Shrek 2) will executive produce the show and Tom Sheppard (Pinky and the Brain) will write it. Annoying Orange is following in the footsteps of another popular YouTube show, Fred (another The Collective project), which scored a TV movie on Nickelodeon.
Annoying Orange is already an extremely popular web series (and, now, iPhone app) -- it has more than 560 million views, 50 million monthly viewers and is the eighth most subscribed YouTube channel of all time -- so we wager that a TV version would be well-received by the pre-existing fan base.
We talked with Boedigheimer about what the show will entail. Check out our Q&A below:
How far along are you in the production process?
I can't talk about placement and/or networks just yet, but we are in the preproduction stage at this point. Shooting begins very soon. Lots of really talented people are on board and it's exciting to see all of it coming together.
What will the show look like?
At it's core it will look a lot like the web series. We will continue to use realistic-looking animation assets, so that the Annoying Orange world resembles our own, but there will also be many kinds of other style of animation/filmmaking incorporated as well. The biggest change will be locations. Whereas the characters mainly live in the kitchen in the web series, now they will live on a fruit cart that can end up in any location at any time…whether it be space, prehistoric times, or Canada.
Will there be new characters/voices?
Yes! Lots of new characters actually. There will still be the core group - Orange, Pear, Passion Fruit, Grandpa Lemon, Grapefruit, Midget Apple, and Marshmallow (all still played by the same people), but now we'll have other characters that live on the fruit cart with them too. We'll also have a main human fruit cart vendor that can interact with the fruit.
Why translate a popular web show to TV?
I love challenges. Every time I do a new video online I try to incorporate something new that challenges me and forces me to learn something new. This is kind of an extension of that tactic, on a much bigger scale. Obviously the web show is simplified because you only have a few minutes to work with each episode, but with TV you have the ability to really incorporate a lot of story and open up the world these characters live in. It's a challenge to make that kind of transition, and one that I'm really excited about. On top of that, Orange has a very respectable following online, and I think being able to create a TV show that works in tandem with the web series would be huge. You could do so many things with cross promotion and driving traffic to each medium. It's exciting!
What has the reaction been so far?