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RoboForce Creator on NacelleVerse, Johnson, Reynolds, Casting & More.

RoboForce creator Brian Volk-Weiss spoke with us about the NacelleVerse, Biker Mice from Mars, Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson, and more.

To say that The Nacelle Company's Brian Volk-Weiss is living the Saturday morning cartoon dream would be an understatement. When he sought to build the NacelleVerse, he would acquire the rights of several toy lines, most of which would have been supplemented with their own animated series. To preview what that would look like, he engaged in several partnerships, including his two biggest signature shows in RoboForce with Dwayne Johnson's Seven Bucks Productions and Biker Mice from Mars with Ryan Reynolds' Maximum Effort. As RoboForce premiered its first season on Tubi, Volk-Weiss spoke with Bleeding Cool about how the animated franchise, which was impacted initially by the introduction of The Transformers, is making a comeback to become the flagship series for the NacelleVerse, how he got into partnerships with the actor-wrestler and the Deadpool franchise star, and casting both shows.

RoboForce Creator Brian Volk-Weiss on Building the NacelleVerse Empire With a Little Help from Some Friends

Bleeding Cool: I see with the NacelleVerse, we have crossover, and 'RoboForce' exists in the same space as 'Biker Mice from Mars.' What inspired you to blend the two IPs together? Did it just make sense at the time to naturally do that, or did you think, why not?

I didn't attend business or marketing school. I have a communications degree from the University of Iowa. I don't even know what that means, and that's the long way of saying, "I have no training whatsoever for anything that we're doing," but I did direct 'The Toys That Made Us,' and I learned a lot from making that show, and one of the things that I learned was Sanrio did this thing. As a disclaimer, I don't want to come across like I'm like criticizing a multi-billion dollar corporation that is more successful in an hour than I probably will be in my entire life, but when we were making the episode, I found it incredibly strange that none of the characters from all their lines can interact.

'Hello Kitty' cannot interact with 'Gudetama,' and I never understood why. First, we got RoboForce, then we got 'Power Lords,' 'Biker Mice,' 'Sectaurs,' 'The Great Garloo,' etc. It never occurred to me not to have them interact with each other, so you're absolutely right. The same way that we're doing 'RoboForce' with The Rock, we're doing 'Biker Mice from Mars' with Ryan Reynolds. This year, 'RoboForce' comes out. because we're bringing back Saturday morning cartoons, if you haven't heard, and then next year, Biker Mice from Mars.' This current season of 'RoboForce,' we'll see Biker Mice with its first two scenes of new footage in 19 years.

So not only are Biker Mice in 'RoboForce,' but their scene is setting up what will happen to them next year in their first season. We also have in the show 'Sectaurs,' 'The Great Garloo,' 'C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa', 'Power Lords,' all our brands are in 'RoboForce' season one, except 'Barnyard Commandos', because we got that deal done after we had locked. Everything is in it.

How did Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds get involved in their respective properties?

I'm sure you've heard the cliched statement about Hollywood, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." We do a show with Dwayne on Disney called 'Behind the Attraction' and luckily, his partner, Hiram Garcia, was also a huge 'RoboForce' fan for similar reasons to me. When he saw the press release, he was like, "Hey, I want to let you know I love 'RoboForce,' can I read some of the scripts?"

[Hiram] loved the scripts, and he was like, "Can we come on board?" I was like, "Do you still work with that Rock guy?" He was like, "Yeah!" And I'm like, "Then yes, you can absolutely come on board and within reason." It was a similar conversation with Ryan, because we were already working with him on a show called 'Discontinued' [for Maximum Effort] that we do with Bruce Campbell. Same thing, he's a huge motorcycle guy. One of the people he works with is a huge 'Biker Mice' man, and again, it was an incoming call. It was like, "Oh my god! We love 'Biker Mice'" and that's literally how it came to be. It's so crazy. Of everything we're doing, that was the easiest part.

What went into the casting for 'RoboForce' regarding the kind of voices you wanted to look for? Was it an open deal, or did you have familiar talent you worked with before for familiarity?

I assure you, we have not worked with them before. This is our first cartoon. It's all new people. We had eight lead roles and 15 speaking parts, for a combined 23 speaking parts in total, other than one little thing here and there. We did well over 500 auditions in the U.S. and Canada, because the animation studio we hired is in Canada. We picked people who had the right voice, and to such an extent that some of the people we hired, either the vibe of their personality, or even stuff they improvised. We changed the scripts and even altered the characters a little bit, because we took advantage of what these actors brought to the parts.

One of the things we looked for was a comedic background, because here's the thing about 'RoboForce.' It's a redemption story. Every single character in the series, when it starts versus when it ends, they're not the same person. Heroes become villains, villains become heroes. People who were successful in the first episode are failing in the end. People who were failing in the beginning are successful at the end; it's all about redemption for everybody.

The series as a whole, if there's one word I would use, it's "redemption." That said, the main things we wanted to convey were heart and humor. There is a lot of comedy. My background in this business is comedy, so I wanted a lot of comedy, and we also wanted a lot of heart. All the actors we hired, for lack of a better word, were "real." These were real people with real personalities, and like I said, we even changed some stuff in the scripts to better match the personality of the people we hired.

Did you consider bringing veteran voice actors for some versatility and maybe additional roles, like Frank Welker, Billy West, or other?

Did we think about it? Yes, of course we did. Did we do it? No, and the reason why we didn't was because we knew we were starting from scratch with 'RoboForce.' We also knew there was no fan base except for that guy in Phoenix. There's this one 'RoboForce' guy in Phoenix, who contradicts everything I say about it. That guy might have the bigger 'RoboForce' collection than I do. Other than him, we knew there wasn't a community that cared about the voices, because nobody had seen the original show.

'Biker Mice from Mars,' on the other hand, we are going to do everything we can to make sure we get the voice talent back who did the original, but for 'RoboForce,' we didn't have to do that, and we auditioned everybody. We didn't audition Frank Welker, that's true. We did it with whoever had the right voice, and that's who we cast. Some had done two roles, some have done 600 roles, so we have actors who are 21, and we have an actor in their mid-70s.

Until we hired people, I didn't even know what they looked like, because what happens is I'm not sitting there in the audition watching them perform. I got an email with 50 auditions, and I sit there with my earbuds and eyes closed. I hit play, listen, and then you go through them again, and you're like, "That guy's wrong, that guy is right. This girl is right. this girl is wrong," and keep cutting down until eventually you make the best decision you can and hope the world agrees with you.

Season one of RoboForce was co-produced by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia for Seven Bucks Productions. It features the voices of Katherine Norris, Julee Song, Rory McCormick, Chris Coculuzzi, Daniel Nwobi, Heather Jansma, and Dave Beynon. The series is available to stream on Tubi. You can check out part one here.

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