Tim Miller on his video game-inspired animated series “Secret Level”

Amazon's “Secret Level,” the animated anthology series from “Deadpool” director and “Love, Death & Robots” creator Tim Miller, takes popular (mainly video game) games and tells short stories set in their universes. Miller sat down with me diversity at the Lucca Comic and Games Convention, his first visit to the Italian festival.

What do you think of Lucca?

How much better is it to walk through old streets than through a convention center? As much as I like San Diego, this is great. It's great to see the culture blossoming. It used to be this little secret thing in dingy rooms, and now the whole world loves the same things I do. And you see these mothers, fathers and children dressed up. An entire generation grew up in this culture.

What is the inspiration behind “Secret Level”?

It seems like a simple idea: take characters from video games and tell original stories. This is what my company Blur has been doing for almost 30 years. When I sold Love, Death & Robots to Netflix, I played a game animation reel from the Blur studio and said, “Give us some money and we'll give you more shit like this.” Here we have 15 different games and that's how we get the fan base of all these games from “Warhammer” to “Sifu”. It is a tide that will lift all boats in this harbor.

How difficult is it to customize games?

You want to honor the game, but you also don't want to make the material so niche that it doesn't include people who haven't played the game. We work very closely with the developers. They give us the backstory and tell us what the fans find interesting. We contacted these authors from Love, Death & Robots. Many play games, so they had an affinity for certain games. They tell us stories that take place in these worlds. We choose the best. You write a prose version of the story, basically a short story. John Scalzi wrote one and Peter Watt wrote the “Armored Core” episode. He is one of the most interesting science fiction authors ever. They are different voices from different genders, ethnicities and backgrounds. It's not just two white people sitting in a room.

What affects the look of the animation?

The feel of individual episodes is a refined version of what you see when you play the game. But in Mega Man or Pac Man, for example, the door is open to do anything because there's not a single look. Then we go into “Love, Death & Robots” mode and ask ourselves: What’s the coolest way to tell a story?

There was recently a film adaptation, “Dungeons & Dragons”.

We weren't afraid to step over it. Here the developer told us that the focus had to be on this five-headed dragon. They said, “We want a dragon like you've never seen before.” That was the goal of the short film.

Do you watch other video game movies for inspiration?

No, honestly, I don't. In the past, Hollywood either didn't understand the game or tried to cater to the fan base. It was the same problem with Deadpool. Since I'm a nerd, I'm always very confident and try to do what I want to be seen as a nerd. Well, my Terminator movie didn't exactly set the world on fire, even though I approached it with that principle, which shows…

How did that feel?

No one sets out to disregard a person's narrowly held childhood dreams. There is no reason for vitriol. A lot of people didn't like Terminator: Dark Fate for reasons that had nothing to do with me. Firstly, because it was the sixth film, and secondly, because we killed John Connor in the beginning, but if Jim Cameron wants that to happen – which I'm fine with, by the way – then that's what you do.

What is the next level?

The game developers said: “We enjoyed this process so much. What do you want to do next?” Hopefully Amazon sees the potential to give this gaming audience a new way to enjoy their characters and worlds.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.