Tencent Video Reveals First Footage of 'Warrior Cats' Animated Series at Shenzhen Fan Event

Tencent Video has unveiled the first animation footage and character artwork for its long-awaited Warrior Cats animated series at a fan meeting in Shenzhen. The preview gives fans their earliest public look at a show still two years from release. Variety

The series is based on the bestselling book franchise written under the pen name Erin Hunter — a collective of authors whose novels about rival clans of feral cats have sold in the tens of millions worldwide since the first volume appeared in 2003. The adaptation draws its characters and plotlines from the opening book arc, Warrior Cats: The Prophecies Begin, using it as the foundation for the animated story. Variety

At the centre of the Shenzhen event was Rusty, the orange house cat whose journey into the wild kicks off the entire saga. Director Rodrigo Blaas personally built a 3D character model of Rusty, unveiled to the crowd for the first time. An exclusive work-in-progress screening also gave attendees their first glimpse of animated characters and environments in motion. Variety

Blaas appeared at the fan meeting alongside Zhou Wang, head of Randong Studio Group and vice president of content production at Tencent Video. A.C. Bradley serves as showrunner — the lead writer and creative decision-maker steering the series — with Blaas directing. Original Force, a Nanjing-based animation studio, is handling animation production on behalf of Tencent Video. Variety

Tencent confirmed its plan to develop and distribute Warrior Cats content through Tencent Video in a corporate article published in October 2023. That commitment has now taken concrete shape, with a launch window set for 2028 across Tencent Video's platforms in China and Southeast Asia. Tencent

For fans of the books, the Shenzhen event offered the first tangible evidence that the adaptation is real and moving. A 2028 release means a production pipeline of writers, animators and modellers is now fully at work — and the footage shown, however unfinished, is the first frame of reference for how these cats will look when they reach screens.