Adi Shankar Devil May Cry Season 2 Interview

Pictures courtesy of Netflix and Adi Shankar

Video game adaptations are becoming increasingly popular and abundant. The best ones are the ones that understand you can’t simply treat a game like a book and translate it 1:1. Instead, these adaptations change, remix, remove, and even add things to the source material to create an experience that’s new and refreshing, no matter your level of familiarity with the original game, while still feeling like it captures its essence.

Devil May Cry is such a show. The brainchild of Adi Shankar, the adaptation of Capcom’s popular video game series of the same name delivers a story familiar to gamers, while filtering it through a very early-2000s punk-rock aesthetic. A big part of why the show works is its soundtrack, filled with nu-metal and punk rock hits.

As season 2 drops, we spoke with Adi Shankar about the music in season 2 of Devil May Cry, bringing in Vergil, and how he sees the show’s future.

Editor’s Note: The following interview has been edited for clarity.

‘Devil May Cry’ Season 2 Sets May 2026 Release & New Trailer

What’s your process like when it comes to writing the scenes for the needle drops?

It depends on the song, really. For season one, I think famously, I said to Netflix before they even greenlit the show — here are the scripts and here are all the songs I need. For season 2, I really wanted to one-up that and go bigger, do wilder swings. Because it’s not just about putting in needle drops, it’s about actually changing it so that it really fits and, you know, really locks in.

If it’s a song we can remix, then I can work with Power Glove, my composers, and I know I can remix the song so it can fit the animatics. It’s going to work, period. Certain needle drops, like when we play Bodies, you then have to cut into the animatic to make sure the song fits. Like, what part of the song are we using, how are we using it.

Did you get every song you were hoping to get this season?

There was actually one big change. When “Freak on a Leash” plays in the finale during the big climax, that wasn’t the original song I had in there. We had the animatic, and we edited it with a song. It was timed and everything, but the original song we had in there was “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins.

And it worked super well. There’s a 360 shot with all the explosions. We timed it to when the drums kick in. And it played funny. Not ha-ha funny, but like dark humor. But I guess it didn’t really fit the music palette of the show, so I kind of pivoted at the last second to “Freak on a Leash.” Because for that we really needed to get both the rights to the song and also to remix it so it could fit the scene as we had it.

A couple of years ago I was showing the scene with “In the Air Tonight” to my friend James Van Der Beek, and at the time he was developing a TV show about the movie “Roadhouse” during the pandemic. And when I showed him the animatic with the song, he was telling me how he really wanted to use that song in “Roadhouse” during a fight scene, where you kick and you punch through the drums bit. And that made me remove the song from Devil May Cry. I wanted him to be able to use the song someday, before he passed earlier this year. I didn’t want to take that away from him, and also I decided I really needed to lean into the nu-metal and not use a super commercial pop culture song in the show.

Vergil is a fascinating character who serves as a mirror and a counter to Dante this season. Tell me about your take on this iconic character.

He is a guy who can be the most dangerous person in a room while standing completely still. He doesn’t need to talk, his presence does the talking. His restraint is what I was most excited to bring to life. Season 1 was about Dante’s loneliness and how he lacked the tools to articulate it. He lost his family, and he’s desperate to get it. But now that he’s found it, it’s not at all what he thought it would be.

Dante changes the tone of the show. It’s like going from Batman Begins to The Dark Knight. He’s very serious where Dante is a little jokey.

How far ahead do you think of in terms of where the story goes? Or do you focus on one season at a time?

There’s two separate things. There’s my imagination, and there’s the reality of the universe. In my head, I’ve had this all figured out. In a situation where someone locks me in a dungeon and makes me crank out Devil May Cry for the next 10 years, I do have it figured out.

Doesn’t mean that that’s what will happen, but I do kind of have a plan, with all this. And it’s very simple because, when I was in college and high school, dreaming of doing the job I’m currently doing, I didn’t want to be one of those guys who just kind of made it up as they went along. I need to know where the plane is landing. The point is taking the audience on a ride. This isn’t like an ego thing, it’s about taking you on a journey with these characters. So I do know where it’s going to go.

And yet, it’s all about arcs. If things are endlessly open-ended, that’s not good storytelling. You still need an ending, even if you know you’re going to keep going. So season 2 ends one arc, even if there might be more arcs after it.