Former Ravens defensive end Trevor Pryce wrote about the one thing that scared him most. And no, it’s not battling gargantuan football players.
It’s bullfrogs.
Pryce has a trilogy of young adult books called “Kulipari: An Army of Frogs,” and it’s been so popular that it’s being taken to the screen.
On Wednesday, Netflix announced a 13-episode order of the series to add to its animated children’s programming. It will arrive in 2016.
The series follows an army of poisonous frogs as they defend themselves against an army of scorpions and spiders battling for their world.
Pryce, who amassed 26 sacks for the Ravens from 2006-2010, never intended to become an author. He originally pitched the frog movie script to Sony, but it wasn’t picked up.
“The movie idea was a lot heavier and a lot darker than this,” Pryce told USA Today in 2013. “I had pitched it as ‘300’ but with outback animals. It was like an action-adventure movie, just animated.”
So why frogs?
“I didn’t like the look of them,” Pryce said.
“If I was to ever run over one it would splat like a balloon and I just could not get that image out of my head. Plus, they gave you warts. I thought that was the most disgusting thing ever. Neither of those things are true, I don’t think, but it made for an interesting childhood because I’m scared of nothing else. I’m not scared of animals. I’m not scared of death. I’m not scared of violence. I do not like bullfrogs.”
It’s interesting that Pryce decided to make the frogs the protagonist given his distaste.
Pryce has long been in the entertainment industry. He started his own music label during his NFL career, and one of his artists’ songs was placed in a Martin Lawrence movie in 2006. It was then, after going to Hollywood, that he decided he wanted to make movies/shows.
Pryce previously sold a script about a gangster running a church to ABC, but it was never produced. He has sold several other animated shows to Disney and the Cartoon Network, per USA Today.
“When you’re a producer, you’re a product of your environment,” Pryce said. “In my house, my kids ran all the TVs. All I had was Nickelodeon and Disney Channel on all day long. That was my frame of reference.”
