Fantasy is one of the most common genres in film and television nowadays, as it’s often combined with others like sci-fi fantasy or horror fantasy. If there’s something whimsical about it, something supernatural or that can’t be explained by science, it’s often considered fantasy. It often makes an impact on pop culture too, as some of the biggest fantasy franchises like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are popular enough to stay relevant and keep going. Massive franchises like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones refuse to stay dormant, with new iterations continuing the magic.

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As the genre continues to boom, though, even original fantasies outside the confines of well-known franchises are gaining more traction. Whether it be making a hidden society on Earth right under everyone’s noses, or an entirely new world to explore in the film or TV show, people are interested in seeing these things come to life. 2022 has brought us many new shows already along with some major continuations, and is starting to reveal a wider variety of possibilities that will only benefit the genre in the future.

These days, when a fantasy title hits the mainstream, studios generally decide to fund spinoffs and sequels and try to milk them to their very last drop. There is no lack of popular franchises stepping up to the plate in 2022 and bringing back more of what everyone loves, even for franchises that had seemingly ended years ago.

For instance, even though Harry Potter ended in 2011, a spinoff movie series started in 2016. Fantastic Beasts is a prequel series to the franchise, bringing both old and new characters together to tell a new story set in the wizarding world. The third movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was released this year, bringing us back to the inside of the ever popular wizarding school and then into more of Europe, ever expanding the universe and showing more of what the wizarding world is like around the globe, not just in England. Let’s not forget that Lord of the Rings is getting a spinoff this year too, as The Rings of Power TV series is set to release soon. This is also a prequel, set thousands of years in the past and bringing familiar and new characters into play as they face the feared re-emergence of evil.

These aren’t the only popular fantasy series getting spinoffs this year, though, and these spinoffs are also prequels at that. Both Game of Thrones and The Witcher will see new series in House of the Dragon and The Witcher: Blood Origin. These popular TV shows are bringing us into the past of both book series, creating their own stories that were never told beforehand that were created around only a few details mentioned in the source material. See the story of the Targaryen civil war around 300 years before the events in Game of Thrones, and go back in time over a thousand years in The Witcher to follow seven elven outcasts unite against an unstoppable power.

Adaptations Are A Reliable Constant

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Adaptations have always been around in movies and TV, especially when it comes to fantasy. The writers don’t have to worry about creating their own fantasy worlds and characters to put into it, but they can source both and bring all manners of books to life, no matter their past or current popularity. Some of the most popular films out there are some kind of adaptation, like any of the Marvel or DC movies adapting their comics and bringing them to life. It’s always exciting to bring a story to life that already has a popular fanbase, and it keeps bringing new, fresh ideas to life that might go under the radar of those who have never heard of the book before. 2022 has adaptations both small and large, and some of the anticipation is palpable.

The Lost Girls is a fantasy adaptation of a book of the same name that is in itself a spinoff of the Peter Pan novel. It’s set after the events of the original story, several generations into the future, and is about the consequences of Peter’s promise to keep coming back to the Darlings. Another movie adaptation coming out, Three Thousand Years of Longing, adapts the short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A. S. Byaat. When a content scholar encounters a Dijnn, offering her three wishes in exchange for his freedom, they have a conversation. However, this conversation brings about consequences neither of them had prepared for. These two adaptations show that stories that might not be well known, or that might spin off of other material, or even might not be considered long enough to make a movie, can still be made, and can still be popular too.

The coming TV show, The Sandman, adapts the popular DC comic series written by Neil Gaiman. Its popularity has been seen all over social media, drawing in even more people to be interested before its release. The titular Sandman is actually Morpheus, also known as Dream. He is the king of dreams, but was captured in a ritual and held captive for over 100 years until he finally escaped. Now he must set out to restore his kingdom. As comic adaptations continue to be popular, it’s nice to see a fresh face in them and have something not as well known and not as flashy as the usual hero comics come into play.

Animation Is Bringing a Fresh Take at Fantasy

Animation is, unfortunately, largely regarded as something for kids movies. Many people look down on it as a medium considering that kids media is largely animation, and don’t think that it could be anything more than that. Even then, kids movies are made for both kids and adults to enjoy, and can often have great fantasy storytelling as well. Animation is one of the best mediums for fantasy, however, as reality sometimes can’t capture fantasy right, even through special effects. Large monsters, dizzying spells, even certain settings all look better animated rather than forced to be life-like in a world where they’ve never existed.

Wendell and Wild is an upcoming animated fantasy-horror movie. If you’re not sure about how animation would handle horror, think back to Coraline — it’s made by the same director. In this movie, the titular characters (played by Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, reuniting after Key & Peele) are demon brothers who are trying to reach the Land of the Living. Their scheming leads them to enlist the aid of a 13-year-old girl in the hopes that she’ll summon them there. Because they don’t have to be life-like in animation, the demon brothers have wild proportions that fit the fantasy aesthetic of this imaginative film.

Perhaps one of the best things brought to the animation and fantasy table for 2022 to really start changing the game is the acclaimed show The Legend of Vox Machina. When a rowdy, misfit group of adventurers band together to try and get some gold by accepting a quest to kill a monster ravaging the lands, they quickly run into more problems which are much larger than they ever anticipated them to be.

There are several reasons the show such a game changer. First, and perhaps the most obvious, is that right from the beginning, we learn this is not a show for kids. With lots of violence, gore, and even some nudity, it proves that adult animation is definitely something that can exist. The second is that this is actually an adaptation of a popular Dungeons and Dragons campaign streamed by the group known as Critical Role. This is something that’s never really been done before in both regards, and considering the show’s success, should open up even more opportunities for the fantasy genre to expand in the future.