Marvel superheroes are working overtime.
Iron Man and Wolverine, each the lead in an upcoming feature film, will be doing double duty in two new Nicktoons Network cartoons, Iron Man: The Animated Series and Wolverine and the X-Men.
The two TV series, which premiere in early 2009, are designed to play off the big-screen popularity of the Marvel comic-book characters. Iron Man, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as a rich inventor transformed by his high-tech armor suit, premieres May 2, while Hugh Jackman's Wolverine returns to the screen next spring in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
The new series match up well with Nicktoons' core audience, boys ages 6 to 14, general manager Keith Dawkins says. Boys make up 65% of the audience for the Nickelodeon property. "Our audience loves superheroes and … animation," he says. The Marvel characters also will help raise the profile of the digital cable network, which reaches 50 million homes.
Other big-screen films are spawning TV animation, too. Nicktoons' animated Speed Racer: The Next Generation premieres May 2, a week before the live-action, big-screen Speed Racer. The computer-animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars opens in theaters in August, leading into a new fall cartoon series on Cartoon Network and TNT.
The two Nicktoons-Marvel shows, each consisting of 26 half-hour episodes, will enjoy higher profiles because of the big-screen productions, which include three previous X-Men films. "We're trying to create synergy with the brand by having a continual awareness of different interpretations of the characters in the marketplace," says Eric Rollman of Marvel Studios, which has another animated series, The Spectacular Spider-Man, on the CW's Kids WB lineup.
For Nicktoons, the interpretation translates into a teen Iron Man, a superhero closer in age to the network's young viewers. The X-Men cartoon sees Wolverine thrust into the role of reluctant leader, as the beaten-down heroes must try to prevent a future world ruled by destructive robots.
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