Matt Braly and Dana Terrace are Now Fully Indie
Matt and Dana are Back with New Projects, Away from Hollywood!
If you’re a fan of Amphibia and The Owl House like I am, then you should be jumping for joy. Because the creators of both shows have just managed to score two major wins for themselves!
If you followed my blog from 2019 to 2023, then you know that I’m a big fan of the shows Amphibia and The Owl House. Airing from 2019 to 2022 and 2020 to 2023, these fantasy western Isekai came at just the right time in my life. I was still reeling over the infamous ending to Game of Thrones in May 2019, and my latest comfort show, Star vs the Forces of Evil, had just come to an end. These two shows fulfilled my need for a story-driven cartoon, and I credit being able to watch them as having gotten me through the COVID-19 Pandemic. To make it even better, their creators, Matt Braly and Dana Terrace, were alumni of the legendary Gravity Falls, which pretty much defined how Disney did cartoons in the 2010s. Between that and how good their shows were, it was clear Matt and Dana were people to watch out for in the animation industry. But they would have to do it outside of Disney.
Matt and Dana would ultimately leave Disney after both of their shows were completed, with mixed results. To the best of my knowledge, Matt left the House of Mouse on civil terms. However, Dana was infamously burned by Disney, with the execs cutting The Owl House’s third and final season short. The thing is, though, they don’t need Disney’s support to be successful. Matt wrote his own graphic novel and started work on a movie with Sony (more on that later.) Meanwhile, Dana found the creative freedom she needed with a Mecca of indie animation, Glitch Productions. And this week, both of them have managed to score two major wins for themselves that is making their fans happy!
Matt Braly Bounces Back
Firstly, we have Matt Braly, and while he’s got good news, there’s also some bad mixed in. The bad news is that the movie he’s been working on for Sony with Rebecca Sugar was unfortunately cancelled. It was supposed to be a story about a boy who travels to the world of Thai spirits right before he gets life-saving, and altering, surgery in search for another cure. Unfortunately, Sony deemed it not commercially viable and scrapped the project. In their defense, I don’t think Thai culture is something that’s going to be widely known around the world just yet, so I get where they’re coming from. Hopefully, Matt can crowdfund the project one day.
Speaking of crowdfunding, that brings me to Matt’s first big W. Much like Dana, he’s going the indie route for his next project, dropping our first look at it on social media. Titled Clara and the Below, it’s a gothic horror series based on The Nutcracker that Matt describes as follows:
I’m a big fan of The Nutcracker, so this seems like a pretty sick idea. Amphibia may not have been the scariest show, per se, but there were moments in it that indicate that Matt can pull off horror pretty well. In addition, we’ve got Matt’s other big W: he’s using this project to start his own animation studio, Fantasy Project. The Kickstarter for it launches March 13th, and you can bet that I’ll be trying to find the spare money to support him.
Meanwhile, Dana has scored some more wins for herself.
Dana Terrace about to Score more Wins
After the way Disney treated her, it’s understandable why she chose to jump ship. Thankfully, she and a few of her team found safe harbor with Glitch Productions, an Australian-based indie studio founded by the guy who created the SMG4 series (which I’m currently binging.) Already famous for shows like Murder Drones, The Amazing Digital Circus, and helping other creators kickstart their own series, Dana has joined their ranks to give us their first 2D animated series, Knights of Guinevere. Set in a dystopian future amusement park spanning an entire planet, KoG is about two friends with differing views about about the company that runs it finding an Android based on the park’s mascot. It’s basically Dana celebrating everything that Disney did in the past while also calling them out for how they’ve done things in recent years. Personally, I don’t blame her. I grew up watching the Disney Renaissance films on VHS, and it feels like they’re a shadow of the loving company they once were.
In any case, the pilot for Knights of Guinevere came out in September 2025 and was a massive hit. And as of earlier this week, Glitch announced that it had been greenlit for a full series. That means that we can expect more KoG in the near future, making this a massive win for Dana and her fans! And it only gets better from there: The Owl House is coming back.
The Owl House is Back
Right after Glitch made the announcement, Dana went on social media to announce that we would be getting an Owl House graphic novel this September. We were actually supposed to get a graphic novel years ago, but it got canned until now. Just how Dana was able to pull this off, I don’t know, but I don’t really care. Named The Long-Lived King, the novel is set in the timeskip following the defeat of Belos and Luz moving to the Boiling Isles to attend college. According to the synopsis, King is struggling with the realization that he’ll outlive all his friends, and thus turns to the Collector for help erasing his bad memories. Unfortunately, whatever they do winds up erasing all of Luz’s memories by mistake!!
That is a genuinely horrifying thing to happen to someone like Luz. This means that she’s likely forgotten everyone and everything on the Boiling Isles as well as all the character growth she’s undergone. And while plenty of things were painful, she was able to come out of the other side a better person thanks to the family she made. And now that family has to help her regain her memories or risk losing the Luz we know and love forever!
I had always hoped that we would get more from the world of The Owl House that wasn’t fan-made, but given what happened to Dana, I had made peace with not seeing it again. So this is a massive and welcome surprise for me! And a welcome one! I don’t know how Dana pulled this off, but I hope this opens the door for more content.
I’m So Happy!
If you know me, then you know by now how big a fan I am of Matt and Dana. I want to see them both thrive, and I’m glad that they’re doing so well right now. They’re both incredibly talented people and I’m going to support what they’re doing for as long as I can. And this is just one small way for me to do so, so if you wanna help, then spread the word!
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