Netflix has announced the cast of Trollhunters, its first animated collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro, the mythical Hero Of A Thousand Projects. Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin will star in the TV series as Jim, a regular guy who ends up in a world populated by big, hairy creatures of variable friendliness, played by retired Beasts like Kelsey Grammer and Ron Perlman. (Apparently, part of being a troll is having a cup of warm butter and gravel lodged firmly in your throat.) Grammer will play a troll named Blinky, while Perlman’s underground dweller goes by Bular; we’ll let you work out for yourself which one is the good troll, and which one is the bad. (Hint: It’s never the guy played by Ron Perlman.)
Trollhunters has been in the works for nearly six years, with Del Toro developing the project through Dreamworks Animation. The studio recently signed a deal with Netflix, giving the streaming service access to Trollhunters and a number of its other animated properties. The new show represents the Pacific Rim director’s first foray into animation, outside that awesome “Treehouse Of Horror” opening he did for The Simpsons a couple of years ago. (Presumably, the family-oriented Trollhunters will have fewer references to H.P. Lovecraft, or Del Toro’s own Cronos.) Trollhunters debuts this December on Netflix.