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Mike Mignola, Neal Baer & Amber Benson Prep Scripted Podcasts As Echoverse Sets Debut Slate

EXCLUSIVE: Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, former Law & Order: SVU showrunner Neal Baer and Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Amber Benson are among a slew of creatives working on a slate of scripted podcasts for Echoverse.

The podcast studio, which focuses on scripted science fiction, supernatural and fantasy audio drama, has a slate of more than two dozen projects in development or prepping for production with its first series set to launch this fall.

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Echoverse was launched last year by Lloyd Braun’s Whalerock Industries, the production and consulting company behind such unscripted series as Battlebots, Hyperdrive and Ravi Patel’s Pursuit of Happiness, and is run by former Syfy executive Mark Stern.

“It’s been a very busy year and we couldn’t be more excited about the growing slate of projects that we are helping this talented group of writers and producers bring to fruition. I can’t wait to see these shows in production and out in the world,” said Echoverse head Mark Stern.

Baer, who also worked on shows including ER and Designated Survivor, is writing Flipped, with his Designated Survivor colleague Ricardo Pérez González. The series follows a talented young Latinx gymnast recovering from an injury is treated with a controversial gene therapy that gives her unexpected superhuman abilities.

Hellboy creator Mignola is adapting and producing Grim Death and Bill The Electrocuted Criminal, the novel he wrote with Thomas Sniegoski. The pair are working with Pete Donaldson on the audio adaptation about a supernatural vigilante who, along with his butler Pym and nearly-dead sidekick Bill, rights wrongs and brings evildoers to justice in service of the angel of death.

Benson, who played Tara Maclay on the long-running series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, is adapting her book The Witches of Echo Park, about a secret coven of witches living in the LA neighbourhood. She is also working with Donaldson.

Elsewhere on the scripted front is The Dying Immortal, a collaboration with the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute that will see Mac Rogers (The Message) write a science-based story about mankind’s first encounter with an alien lifeform. Boom Integrated (Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls), Mike Sword (Legends Of The Deep) and Kevin Fox (Raising Kanan) also produce.

In The Blood is a supernatural thriller about a newlywed meets her husband’s insular New England family and discovers a generations-old secret that threatens both her life and the life of her unborn child. It comes from Supernatural and The Thrilling Adventure Hour pair Ben Acker and Ben Blacker.

On the non-scripted side, the company is also working on three projects.

Ghost Stories comes from Jonathan Hirsch and Sony-backed Neon Hum and is an investigative series that follows journalist Jake Flanagin and his producer Natalie Rinn as they take an immersive look at unresolved stories of supernatural, paranormal and other unexplained phenomena

Myth Seeker is a deep dive with scientist-turned-audio-producer Diane Hope that explores the mysterious creatures of modern myth, legend and lore. Dodging hoax evidence and dubious sightings, Hope weaves through the worlds of science and culture, psychology and storytelling, to dig out the truth behind the legend.

Finally, This Is Kinda F’d Up comes from Tatiana King and BenHaMeen, the team behind the ForAllNerds media collective. It is a weekly talk show that takes a deep dive into genre and pop content, creators, and culture.

Stern’s development team at Echoverse includes J.P. Alanis, Nick Garland and Justin Middleton.

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