It’s a strange world in Sweet Tooth, Netflix’s adaptation of Jeff Lemire’s Vertigo/DC Comics series. The story about a hybrid deer-boy takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where being a hybrid human-animal is not that uncommon.
The first trailer for the adaptation goes hard on the heart-tugging score but light on plot; the Netflix summary is brief: “Sweet Tooth is a post-apocalyptic fairytale about a hybrid deer-boy and a wandering loner who embark on an extraordinary adventure.”
Gus (Christian Convery), the deer boy, is one of the first hybrids to appear after a pandemic (yikes); he lives isolated in the woods of Nebraska with his religious father (Will Forte). After tragedy strikes, strange men show up to take Gus away—but a loner named Jeppard (Nonso Anozie) saves him. Gus is extremely sweet and his world is full of dangers and darkness, so be warned that this show may be a lot to take in, emotionally speaking.
Sweet Tooth, the comic, initially ran for 40 issues staring in 2009. While on set for the adaptation, Lemire was inspired to create Sweet Tooth: The Return, a six-issue series that takes place years after the original story.
The adaptation comes from showrunners and writers Beth Schwartz (Arrow) and Jim Mickle (Hap and Leonard), who also directs. (As noted in the trailer, Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey are among the producers.) A pilot for Sweet Tooth was originally ordered by Hulu in 2018, but last year it was picked up as an eight-episode series by Netflix. The show was one of the productions allowed to film in New Zealand last year, and seems to have come together fairly quickly: All eight episodes will debut on Netflix on June 4th.
