Animals Creators Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano Sign 20th Century Fox TV Deal

Just one day after HBO canceled their adult animation series Animals, creators Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano have made their next move. The duo has signed a two-script deal to create two animated series for 20th Century Fox TV, per Deadline.

Under the deal, the duo will write one script and supervise another writer on the second, both of which will be shopped to different platforms.

Animals, for which Matarese and Luciano wrote and directed all the episodes, and voiced most of the characters, was executive produced by Jay and Mark Duplass, who used their pull as a powerhouse indie producing duo to attract a number of high-profile guest stars to the series. Over its three-season run on HBO, Jessica Chastain, Jonah Hill, Whoopi Goldberg, Wanda Sykes, Marlon Wayans and Emilia Clarke, among many others, all made appearances voicing various animals across New York.

20th Century Fox TV has been making an aggressive push into the adult animation genre, and as a result, the studio has landed four series orders for new animated series on different platforms. Bless the Harts, from writer Emily Spivey, landed at Fox; Hoops, from Phil Lord and Chris Miller, at Netflix; Central Park, from Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard and Josh Gad, has a two-season, straight-to-series order at Apple; and Solar Opposite, from Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland and writer/producer Mike McMahan, has a two-season pickup at Hulu.

It’s too early to tell where Matarese and Luciano’s next projects will land, but hopefully we can expect more from them shortly.

Check out our August interview with Matarese and Luciano ahead of Animals’ season three premiere.