---
type: source
title: "Mediawan Kids & Family to Turn Viral NFT Brand Claynosaurz Into Animated Series"
author: "Variety Staff"
url: https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/mediawan-kids-family-nft-brand-claynosaurz-animated-series-1236411731/
date: 2025-06-02
domain: entertainment
secondary_domains: []
format: article
status: processed
processed_by: clay
processed_date: 2026-04-06
priority: high
tags: [claynosaurz, animated-series, community-ip, mediawan, transmedia, creator-economy, youtube-first]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
claims_extracted:
- "progressive validation through community building reduces development risk by proving audience demand before production investment"
- "traditional media buyers now seek content with pre-existing community engagement data as risk mitigation"
---

## Content

Partnership announcement: Mediawan Kids & Family (Europe's leading animation studio) co-producing 39-episode animated series based on the Claynosaurz NFT brand. Series runs 39 episodes × 7 minutes each, targeting children aged 6–12. Comedy-adventure following four dinosaur friends on a mysterious island.

Key details:
- Showrunner: Jesse Cleverly (co-founder and creative director of Wildseed Studios, a Mediawan-owned Bristol-based banner)
- Distribution: YouTube-first launch, then available for licensing by traditional TV channels and platforms
- Claynosaurz background: Created 2021 by Nicholas Cabana, Dan Cabral, and Daniel Jervis (former VFX artists from Sony Pictures, Animal Logic, Framestore)
- Pre-series metrics: 450M+ views, 200M+ impressions across digital platforms, 530,000+ subscribers — before launching the show
- No premiere date announced as of June 2025

The deal reflects Mediawan's stated vision to "collaborate with emerging talent from the creator economy and develop original transmedia projects."

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the empirical test for Session 5-6's DM-model thesis. Claynosaurz is the Tier 2 governance case (founding team retains editorial authority; community provides informal engagement signals). Their series launch will be the first real test of whether community-built IP with founding-team editorial authority (the TTRPG-model) produces coherent linear narrative. The 39-episode format at 7 min each is substantial enough to assess narrative coherence.

**What surprised me:** Jesse Cleverly from Wildseed Studios as showrunner — this is NOT the Claynosaurz founding team as DM. An external showrunner from a Mediawan-owned studio is making the show. This complicates the DM-model framing significantly. The "founding team as editorial authority" thesis needs qualification: it's actually a studio co-production where the founding team presumably retains creative oversight but the day-to-day editorial authority may rest with Cleverly.

**What I expected but didn't find:** A specific premiere date. Also expected more detail about how community feedback will influence the series — the press coverage is silent on this. The community governance mechanism for the series is not described.

**KB connections:** Directly tests [[the media attractor state is community-filtered IP with AI-collapsed production costs where content becomes a loss leader for the scarce complements of fandom community and ownership]] — Claynosaurz is the case study. Also connects to Session 6's Finding 6 (TTRPG model is the collaborative format most likely to produce coherent linear narrative).

**Extraction hints:**
- The external showrunner complicates the "founding team as DM" framing — may need a new claim about studio-community partnership dynamics
- The YouTube-first distribution strategy is evidence for the distribution bypass claim (Session 3)
- Pre-series metrics (450M views before show launch) are strong evidence for community-as-prior-asset thesis

**Context:** This is the most current public information on the Claynosaurz series. As of April 2026, no premiere date has been confirmed. Series is still in production.

## Curator Notes

PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[the media attractor state is community-filtered IP with AI-collapsed production costs where content becomes a loss leader for the scarce complements of fandom community and ownership]]
WHY ARCHIVED: This is the empirical case that all 7 previous research sessions have been building toward. Any evidence about series reception when it launches should immediately update Session 5-6 findings about community governance and narrative quality.
EXTRACTION HINT: Focus on (1) the external showrunner complication of the DM-model, (2) the YouTube-first strategy as distribution bypass evidence, (3) the gap between pre-series community strength and series launch data (when available).
