Brian Volk-Weiss on revving up Ryan Reynolds for ‘Biker Mice’, journey from collector to toy company CEO
Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on August 25, 2023
“People thought I was a little crazy two years ago,” Brian Volk-Weiss tells ABC Audio about his “surreal” journey from TV producer and toy collector to successful toy company CEO.
The Nacelle Company had been seen in the credits to streaming hits like The Movies That Made Us and The Toys that Made Us, among many others. “You know … if people knew who we were at all, we were famous for two things: stand-up comedy specials and documentaries about pop culture,” he continues.
However, Nacelle has expanded from a media company — with clients including Netflix, Hulu and Discovery — to cornering a particular part of pop culture: acquiring the IPs from beloved shows and toy lines familiar to Gen Xers, and creating toys and new shows from them.
“People at first were like, ‘What do you mean you bought a copyright?'” Volk-Weiss says with a laugh.
His expanding, and soon to be interlacing, “Nacelleverse” now includes Robo Force, Sectaurs and Wild West Cowboys of Moo Mesa, among others.
The company recently made headlines because one of those properties — an animated ’90s show called Biker Mice from Mars — caught the attention of Ryan Reynolds.
Volk-Weiss says Reynolds “loved” the cartoon. “He grew up on it, like many of us did.”
The producer explains another fan was a colleague who happened to become the head of television at the Deadpool star’s company, Maximum Effort.
“So he asked Ryan, like, ‘Hey, like, did you watch this?’ Ryan was like, ‘F*** yeah! Oh my God, this is great,” Brian said, before noting, “Something like that. I was not on the call.”
Whatever Reynolds did say, however, led to him and Volk-Weiss collaborating on a new Biker Mice animated series for Fubo.
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