The Umbrella Academy (TV series)


The Umbrella Academy is an American superhero web television series based on the comic book series of the same name published by Dark Horse Comics. Created for Netflix by Steve Blackman and developed by Jeremy Slater, it revolves around a dysfunctional family of adopted sibling superheroes who reunite to solve the mystery of their father's death and the threat of an impending apocalypse. The series is produced by Borderline Entertainment, Dark Horse Entertainment, and Universal Cable Productions.
The ensemble cast features Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Cameron Britton, and Mary J. Blige. The adaptation began development as a film optioned by Universal Pictures in 2011. It was eventually shelved in favor of a television series in 2015, before being officially greenlit by Netflix in July 2017. The series is filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario.
The first season was released on Netflix on February 15, 2019. It received positive reviews from critics, with many praising the cast and visuals, though the tone and pacing were criticized. In April 2019, Netflix reported that 45 million households had watched season one during its first month of release. That same month, the series was renewed for a second season which was released on July 31, 2020.

Premise

On October 1, 1989, 43 women around the world give birth simultaneously, despite none of them showing any sign of pregnancy until labor began. Seven of the children are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves, and turned into a superhero team in what he calls "The Umbrella Academy". Hargreeves gives the children numbers rather than names, but they eventually are named by their nanny robot-mother, Grace, as: Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Number Five, Ben, and Vanya. While putting six of his children to work fighting crime, Reginald keeps Vanya apart from her siblings' activities, as she supposedly demonstrates no powers of her own.
In the present day, Luther is a part ape who lived on the moon for four years, Allison is a famous actress, Vanya is a violinist, Klaus has a drug addiction, Ben, now deceased, is a ghost able to converse only with Klaus, and Diego has become a vigilante with a penchant for trouble. The estranged siblings learn that Reginald has died and gather for his funeral. Number Five returns from the future, chased by vigilantes, and reveals that a global apocalypse is imminent. Meanwhile, the reunited siblings try to uncover the secret of their dysfunctional family while beginning to come apart due to their divergent personalities and abilities.

Cast and characters

Main

Season 1 (2019)

Season 2 (2020)

Production

Development

A film version of the comic book series The Umbrella Academy was optioned by Universal Studios. Originally, screenwriter Mark Bomback was hired to write the screenplay; Rawson Marshall Thurber reportedly replaced him in 2010. There had been little talk of the film from that time. In an interview with Newsarama at the 2012 New York Comic Con, Way mentioned that there have been "good talks" and a "really good script", but that it was "kind of up to the universe".
On July 7, 2015, it was announced that The Umbrella Academy would be developed into a television series, rather than an original film, produced by Universal Cable Productions. On July 11, 2017, it was officially announced that Netflix had greenlit a live-action series adaptation of The Umbrella Academy premiering in 2019, with Way and Bá acting as executive producers. Jeremy Slater wrote the script for the pilot episode, and Steve Blackman serves as showrunner. The first season of The Umbrella Academy was released on Netflix on February 15, 2019.
On April 2, 2019, the series was renewed for a second season, which was released on July 31, 2020. The season release date remained unknown until May 18, 2020, where a teaser trailer concept was released where the main cast danced to "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany. Steve Blackman confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that he wants to stay in the course of what the comics are doing without deviating too much.

Filming

for the first season began on January 15, 2018 in Toronto. Gerard Way posted on his Instagram account an illustration by Fabio Moon of the cast and crew doing the first table read of the script in Toronto. He also revealed a picture of the first day on the set. Additional filming took place in Hamilton, Ontario.
For the theatre where Vanya performed with her violin, the crew used the Elgin Theatre, alongside the Winter Garden Theatre. Mazzoleni Concert Hall was used to represent the theatre's exterior. The exterior of the mansion was filmed at a building in Hamilton, while the interiors were filmed in studio. The Joey & Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre was filmed for an outside scene and Union Station was used for a bank robbery scene. A laboratory at the University of Toronto was filmed to represent the Meritech Prosthetics building. The filming concluded on July 18, 2018.
Filming for the second season began in June 2019 and concluded on November 23, 2019.

Visual effects

Visual effects for the series are handled by SpinVFX and Weta Digital, which worked only on Pogo. VFX supervisor Everet Burrell confirmed that he used traditional art techniques for early concept art and referenced great actors with iconic faces. Burrell called Weta Digital, who previously worked for the rebooted Planet of the Apes series, to develop the visual effects for the character of Pogo. Ken Hall provided the motion capture for Pogo using a gray suit to later make editions to his captures to create the CGI of the chimpanzee, with Adam Godley making the facial expressions and voice acting of the character.
SpinVFX confirmed that they delivered at least 563 shots for the series. To make the effects of the show, the team required a series of complex effect simulations, creature development, and massive destructions.
For the effects of Number Five jumping through time and space, Burrell wanted to make the effects look organic, and liquidy, representing how much time and the world bends around him when he jumps, and how quick it should be. For these effects, he used more than 30 frames in the first episodes, however with the progress of the series, this reduced to only 10 frames. To that footage, the team iterated on several kinds of spatial jump effects, all the way from heavy distortion to subtler images. The visual effects team started with some R&D tests. At the end, the final effect, called the "jelly vision", was used to make the series, with Burrell expressing: "as if you're pushing your hand through a jelly membrane, just for a few seconds, and then it pops. It's really, really subtle, but you get a little bit of texture, you get a little bit of striations, almost like the universe is bending as he does his spatial jumps."
In an interview with Burrell he confirmed that to develop the sequences where time is frozen, they took several background shots on location before returning to their stage to shoot the dialogue between Five and The Handler in front of a green screen. They called this effect "Three-Strip" in honor of the Technicolor process used in the 1930s.

Reception

Audience viewership

On April 16, 2019, Netflix announced that the series had been streamed by over 45 million viewers on its service within its first month of release. It was the third most popular TV series on Netflix in 2019.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of 88 critic reviews are positive for the first season, and the average rating is 7.2/10. Critics' consensus on the website reads, "The Umbrella Academy unfurls an imaginative yarn with furtive emotion and an exceptionally compelling ensemble, but the series' dour sensibility often clashes with its splashy genre trappings." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 61 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Some critics pointed out similarities between The Umbrella Academy, DC Universe's Doom Patrol and Marvel Comics's X-Men series, both positively and negatively.
For the second season, Rotten Tomatoes identified 91% of 58 reviews as positive, with an average rating of 8.27/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Proof that time can heal almost all wounds, The Umbrella Academy exhilarating second season lightens its tonal load without losing its emotional core, giving the super siblings room to grow while doubling down on the time traveling fun. The season garnered a weighted average of 63/100 from 10 critics on Metacritic, signifying "generally favorable reviews".

Controversy

Some Jewish writers criticized The Umbrella Academy's portrayal of the Handler. In particular, her use of a Yiddish idiom and her membership in a secret society that discreetly causes catastrophic events were together perceived as an antisemitic stereotype of Jewish people secretly and malevolently controlling world events.

Accolades