The Phantom (2015 TV Series)

The Phantom is a 2014 american supernatural drama television series, based off of Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom, primarily as a reboot series, premiering on October 21, on the CW Television Network. The series follows Danny Fenton (Dylan Sprayberry), a teenager that becomes half-ghost, and with the help of his friends, Sam Manson (Kira Kosarin) and Tucker Foley (Trevor Jackson), Danny uses his powers to fight crime and defeat evil ghost.

Synopsis
As a child, Danny Fenton witnesses his parents, who were scientists working on exploring the supernatural, turn on a functional portal linking their world to a world full of supernatural creatures, but witnesses their murder, when they are killed by a supernatural being, leaving Danny to be raised by his older sister. Five years later, looking through his parents old lab wth his friends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley, Danny accidently re-acitivates the damaged Ghost Portal, causing an explosion of green ecto energy that puts him in the hospital, changes his DNA, and unleashes multiple ghosts. Upon waking up, Danny discovers that he has supernatural ghost powers, such as flight, invisibility, intangibility, and more. Now with Sam and Tucker's help, Danny must protect his secret from the rest of the world, while using his powers, and an array of his parents ghost hunting gear to protect his planet from evil supernatural creatures as Amity Park's own hero, "The Phantom".

Main Cast

 * Dylan Sprayberry as Danny Fenton/The Phantom, a teenage boy, who is half-human and half-ghost. As a 9 year old child, Danny witnessed his scientific parents turn on a portal meant to view a world of ghost, but when a supernatural being came through the portal and killed them, Danny was left to be raised by his 17 year old sister. Years later, a 14 year old Danny took his friends through his parents lab, and accidently re-activated the portal, causing an explosion of green ecto energy, that hospitalizes him and released several ghost. Waking up, he discovered that the ecto energy changed his DNA, turning him half ghost and gained a variety of ghostly powers. Now, with the help of his best friends, Sam and Tucker, Danny uses his powers to fight the ghost that escaped during the ghost portal explosion. Danny only goes by the ghostly surname he adopted in the original cartoon, Phantom, instead of just replacing his last name as Danny Phantom. At first, Danny desperately tries to fit in, feeling as an outcast, and was first unsure about using his powers, focusing on his normal life, with Jazz, his friends, and his friendship turned romance with his life long crush, Valerie Gray, but eventually grew mature, gaining great confidence and begins focusing on his heroic duties.
 * Transformation - Though he can use his powers in both his ghost and human form, Danny learned to transform into his ghost suit instead of having to put it on. After learning to transform into his ghost form, he gained white hair and green eyes in his transformation and wears a black suit with white gloves, boots, collar, and belt, with white accents throughout the suit and the idolistic white "D" with a "P" inside symbol on his chest. When he transforms he is surrounded by a blue spectral aura ring that seperates as he transforms.
 * Flight - Danny has the ability to defy gravity and fly at high speeds and altitudes.
 * Ghost Sense - Danny can sense nearby ghosts, which is shown as a blue mist from his mouth when activated.
 * Ectoplasmic Generation - Danny can create beams of green ecto energy he calls his ghost rays, and can create ecto energy balls and waves. He can also shoot his ghost rays from his eyes.
 * Ghost Shield - Another part of his ecto generation is the ability to create ghost shields of ecto energy, either full domes to absorb any attack from all sides or rectangular shields to deflect any attack.
 * Invisibility - Danny can turn himself and anything or anyone he touches invisible.
 * Intangibility - Danny can phase himself and anything or anyone he touches through solid objects.
 * Overshadowing - Danny can phase into living beings to take over their body. When overshadowed, the subject's appearance remains the same, but the eyes often glow green and he can still use his powers when overshadowing someone.
 * Levitation - Danny can also levitate objects, in which a green ghostly aura surrounds the objects he levitates.
 * Duplication - Danny can duplicate into multiple copies of himself.
 * Cryokinesis - A power that is common to Frostbite's people, with this ability, Danny can generate beams or balls of ice that can freeze anything it touches. He can also create cold ghost shields that are more resistant to fire attacks. The appearance of his ice beams and shields look exactly like his ecto generation, but blue instead of green. His eyes also glow blue when he uses his ice powers.
 * Ghostly Wail - A unique ability in which Danny can create a large and powerful sonic scream of ectoplasmic waves, that sounds like an ongoing classic ghost sound. He learned this power after witnessing his evil future self do it, and uses it ten years earlier than he was meant to. It is most likely his most powerful ghost power, as it can cause extreme damage to his enemies and objects, but takes a majority of his energy to use it.
 * Repulsion Field - Danny can expel a large amount of ecto energy to repel his enemies, which he mostly only uses when he's surrounded by multiple enemies.
 * Ghost Stingers - An attack in which Danny utilizes ecto energy in an electric form to shock his enemies and can use it to reverse electric attacks targeting him.
 * Ecto Augmentation - Danny can generate his ecto energy to increase his physical strength tremendously.
 * Spectral Body Manipulation - Danny has the ability to manipulate his body shape, constantly using this power to replace his legs with a ghostly tail. Danny can split his body in two, but keep them connected through spectral matter and can bend and twist his body far beyond the normal limits of human physiology.
 * Kira Kosarin as Samantha "Sam" Manson, Danny's gothic best friend, who knows and protects Danny's secret, as she talked him into to showing her the lab and witnessed the explosion. She helped Danny learn to use his powers and designed the suit that Tucker made. Sam is very intelligent and loyal to her friends and is often the most pragmatic of the group and stands up for what she believes in, particularly enviornmental problems, and owns her own greenhouse. Her parents are extremely wealthy social conservationists, but she briefly kept this from her friends to avoid "fake friendships", with people who only like her wealth. Sam clashes with her parents multiple times about her gothic personality. Though she denies it multiple times, Sam does have a crush on Danny, and is always their when he needs her. With her knowledge of the Supernatural, Sam has discovered the weaknesses of multiple ghosts, as her friendship with Danny develops into romance.
 * Trevor Jackson as Tucker Foley, Danny and Sam's best friend, and a lighthearted genius, who acts as the group's comic relief in intense situations and also protects Danny's secret, as he was also present at the time of the ghost portal explosion. With his technical knowledge, Tucker fixed up the lab and the damaged equipment Danny's parents developed and helps Danny track ghost and hack into computers and machinery from a console in the lab. Tucker has a clear love of comics, sci-fi, and pop culture. He has great pride in his tech and is protective and somewhat obsessed of it.
 * Galadriel Stineman as Jasmine "Jazz" Fenton, Danny's older sister and legal guardian. Being 17 years old at the time of her parents' murder, almost 18, she was allowed to be Danny's legal guardian and raised him. To pay bills, Jazz took a full time job after High School. She is very intelligent and caring, and can also be a little over protective of Danny. Sometimes, Danny feels that Jazz could've had a better life, went to college and have a family, if she didn't have to take care of him, but she never regrets her decision to raise him and they have become as a close as siblings can be because of it, and she is more of his surrogate parent Though she has tended to pry into Danny's personal life, she did not tell Danny when she discovered his secret, believing it's his secret to tell and will tell her when he's ready.
 * Zendaya Coleman as Valerie Gray/Arsenal, first love interest on the show, who is a popular cheerleader, but unlike the rest of her popular friends, Valerie isn't mean, shallow, or selfish, but is instead very caring and smart, always willing to help those in need, and becomes good friends with Danny, Sam, and Tucker. Looking for honesty in her relationships, she struggled with a relationship with Danny, knowing that he has been dishonest, but only because he has been reluctant to tell her his secret, due to her obvious and variously shown hatred for ghost, as she has been caught in various ghost attacks, prompting her to learn to defend herself and even becomes a ghost hunter, recieving ghost hunting gear from Vlad Masters. She is hot-tempered, which often clouds her judgement while ghost hunting, but slowly starts to realize a world beyond the superficial.

Allies

 * Clive Owen as Clockwork, the Master of Time, an immortal ghost who controls and keeps the flow of time. He is calm, tricky, and knows everything that will or could possibly happen, and instead of killing Danny to prevent the destruction of the future, Clockwork instead tricked Danny into making decisions, that would prevent him from becoming evil. Neutral, he does not fulfill every wish Danny desires, including altering past events and only adjusts time as he sees fit, usually in order to teach Danny a lesson. He constantly changes his age and appearance from a child to adult to old man, which refers to his detachment from the time sequence.


 * Bob Joles as Frostbite, a jovial yeti-like ghost, and the leader of his people in the far frozen area of the ghost zone, where Danny is worshipped as the chosen savior of the Ghost Zone, after defeating Pariah Dark. Like Clockwork, he has served as a mentor to Danny, and ultimately teaches him to master his ice powers.
 * Rowan Blanchard as Danielle "Dani" Phantom, an imperfect clone of Danny, created by Vlad, as a stepping stone towards a perfect clone of Danny under Vlad's power. Out of all the clones, Danielle was the most stable and a nearly perfect clone, matching his memories, his powers, his likes and dislikes, his thoughts, and how he thinks, except she is a younger female, and with those matching qualities, Vlad tricked her into thinking she was his daughter in order to capture Danny, until Danny convinced her she was nothing more than a tool to Vlad. After siding with Danny, she went to school as Danny's cousin, though he actually acts as an older brother. She has become friends with Sam and Tucker, and created a close sisterly relationship with Jazz, until she decided to leave and travel Earth.
 * Melissa Ponzio as Pandora, is the creator and owner of "Pandora's Box", a magic that holds all the worlds evil. When Danny was powerless to stop the Box Ghost from creating havoc with the box, he entered her lair and asked her help in retrieving it back. She is a benevolent ghost who keeps the world less evil by keeping many malicious contents within her box, but can get aggressive when tampered with.
 * Dakota Fanning as Princess Dorathea "Dora", is a ghost princess that has an amulet that can transform her, or any one who wears it, into a dragon. In her first appearance, she lost control of her Dragon form and attacked Danny, and lost the amulet in a battle. Danny gave the amulet to Valerie, causing her to transform upon getting angry, and returned the amulet to her after she helped save Valerie. She later returned to Earth as a teacher to retrieve a wife for his brother, and chose Sam under Danny's choice, until Sam helped her realize she is just as powerful as her brother and overthrew him.
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Wulf, a bipedal wolf ghost, constantly on the run from Walker, as an escaped prisoner. He only speaks Esperanto and has the power to create portals between worlds by slashing rips between dimensions with his claws. He always remains a loyal friend to Danny after he helped Wulf escape Walker.

Villains

 * Robert Downey Jr. as Vlad Masters/Plasmius, a rich debonair billionaire, and an old partner of Jack and Maddie's, who helped them with the ghost portal, but he was caught in the first portals explosion of red ecto energy, putting him in a coma for a year. While investigating his parents' work, Danny searched for Vlad for help, but eventually learned that Vlad is also a half-ghost, far more powerful than Danny, due to his longer experience that constantly one-ups Danny's abilities. He is a very devious and intelligent man, whose exterior charm to the public hides his manipulative interior and alter-ego "Plasmius". Though he is Danny's main arch-rival in the series, he has a goal to obtain Danny as his son/apprentice.
 * Vlad has nearly all the same powers as Danny, but far more powerful, due to his multiple years of experience. Like Danny he can transform into his ghost form, which consists of a white suit, with black gloves, boots, collar, and belt with black accents throughout it, and his skin turns light blue, his grey hair turns black and his dark blue eyes turn fully red. Plasmius' ectoplasmic energy generation is red, instead of green like Danny's. Though the abilities that Vlad does share with Danny are far more improved, their seems to be a few powers he hasn't developed, such as ghost sense, ice generation, or ghostly wail, but also has various abilities Danny does not, such as the power to teleport and to absorb ecto energy and redirect it. Another power Vlad has that Danny doesn't is the ability to from red energy constructs, in which he has created an energy blade, a tornado, rope, cage, and a bubble. Like Danny, Vlad only goes by Plasmius the ghostly surname he adopted in the original cartoon, instead of Vlad Plasmius
 * Sean Bean as Walker, is a very strict vigilante and warden who runs the prison of the Ghost Zone. He enjoys law and order and often commands with an iron fist; whoever so much as disobeys one rule from his law book is in trouble. To justify his cause, he often makes up the rule as he abides by them and is not above using dirty measures to keep the Ghost Zone clean and corruption-free.
 * Geno Segers as Skulker, the self-proclaimed "Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter", who hunts down rare and unusual ghosts and has vowed to hunt down Danny for his rare half ghost status. He uses raw power and intense weaponry, but understands the way of the hunt, so he is able to utilize his brain to take advantage of his situation as a predator to one-up his prey. Though Skulker is tough and strong, he is actually a small green ghost, in a robotic exosuit.
 * Jim Carry as Nicolai Technus, only refered to as Technus, a boisterous genius mad scientist ghost and the self-proclaimed "Ghost Master of Science and Technology", who has the ability to control and merge with all electrical technology, a supernatural power known as Technopathy
 * Spencer Breslin as Box Ghost, is a running gag ghoul, who constantly fights with cardboard and anything square, but much like his future self, he can create explosive blocks of ecto energy. He is incompetent in his attempts to scare people and is barely taken seriously by either the heroes or the other ghosts.
 * Emilia McCarthy as Ember McClain, a teenage ghostly musician, somewhat of a siren, due to her power to control people by singing, making them more rebellious, except Danny, who is protected by his ghostly aura.
 * Chad Michael-Murray as Johnny 13, a rebellious and mischevious ghoul biker, who often likes to cause bad luck, using his living shadow to wreak havoc, but also tends to leave Danny or anyone else alone unless prompted.
 * Stacy Farber as Kitty, Johnny 13's demanding and shrewish girlfriend. She is demanding and shrewish. She is constantly under dire stress over her loose boyfriend, wishing he'd focus his full attention on her. She has the ability to banish anyone to a different dimension for 24 hours.
 * Krista Allen as Desiree, is a genie-like ghost who travels the world granting anyone's deepest desires, unfortunately, while compelled to grant any wish she hears, she is free to interpret and twist it any way she sees fit and gets stronger the more she grants. "So you have wished it, so shall it be!" is her sly response to a wish. Her vindictive nature stems from her life as a human where many years back, she was a harem girl who won the affections of a sultan. He showered her with whatever gifts her heart desired, but was murdered by the Sultan's jealous wife and returned as a ghost.
 * Scarlette Johanson as Penelope Spectra, a sadistic ghost who strives to be youthful and beautiful. To do so, she often targets teenagers and through elaborate plans, slowly sucks the youth out of them. She retains a perky personality and chipper demeanor while hiding a dark, seductive and psychotic nature deep inside her.
 * Dylan Riley Snyder as Sydney Poindexter, a nerdy teenager from the 1950's, who was the most bullied kid in Casper High when he was alive, but died in what was supposed to be a prank by the Football team, and haunted the school for revenge, leaving Danny to stop him.
 * Davis Cleveland as Young Blood, a ghost with the appearance of a young child. Obnoxious and childish, he can only be seen by children. Despite his looks, Youngblood is a keen commander and skilled in battle.
 * Tom Felton as Prince Aragon, the ruthless older brother of Princess Dorathea, who, like his sister, has an amulet that allows him to transform into a dragon, especially when angry or distressed. Under his rule, his kingdom was lifeless and unhappy and he constantly treated his sister cruelly. She eventually finds Sam, as a bride for him, but Sam helps her realize her brother is no stronger than she is and Aragon is defeated and overthrown by his sister.
 * Brian Cox as King Pariah Dark, the former King of all Ghosts, who, with the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire by his side, ruthlessly commanded the Ghost Zone. Nearly limitless in power and domineering, Pariah was eventually captured. He was placed into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep where he lay until Plasmius accidentally awakened him in persuit of power and immediately laid waste to both Amity Park and the Ghost Zone until Danny ultimately defeated him, fulfilling Frostbite's prophecy.
 * Michael Dorn as Fright Night, a powerful, gruff knight who spreads terror by sending his victims into thier worst fears, and works as Pariah Dark's loyal servant, but also worked with Plasmius after Pariah's defeat.
 * James Garret as Nocturne, the ghost of sleep and dreams, who once put all of Amity park to sleep, and unfortunately becomes more powerful the more people dream. With the help of his sleepwalkers, he went around the world stealing the dream energies of everyone, until defeated by Danny.
 * Dave Boat as Vortex, a psychotic weather controlling ghost, bent on creating chaos on Earth, generating and controlling storms, with a power he calls a form of art.
 * Mark Hamill as Undergrowth, is a ghost who controls plants, who, upset that his beloved nature has been torn down by human hands, overtakes Amity Park, turns it into his own horticulture lair, and possesses Sam, turning her into his "daughter" and the mother to his plants, but is defeated when Danny masters his ice powers and freezes the roots.
 * Dylan Sprayberry as The Wraith, a powerful ghost being that needs a host every 24 hours, leaving his hosts dead after leaving their body, in his search for the perfect host to become completely stable. He eventually searched for Danny and took the ghost boys DNA, becoming an exact doppleganger with all of Danny's powers, memories, interests and thoughts, but an inverted form of Danny's suit, wearing a white suit, with black gloves, boots, belt, collar, and black accents, and has red eyes and red ecto energy, but can invert his suit to look like Danny's, in an attempt to live Danny's life as his own.
 * Tom Welling as Dark Phantom, Danny's evil future self, and a result of the fusion of Danny's and Vlad's ghost halves. In his future, Jazz, Tucker, and Sam died in a tragic explosion of the Fenton Lab. With no where else to go, Danny went to Vlad, asking his arch nemesis to remove his emotions, so Vlad removed The Phantom from Danny Fenton, but the latter retaliatied afterward and did the same to Vlad. When The Phantom tried to overshadow Plasmius, Danny's strongwill took control of the merged body, but Plasmius evil conscious overwhelmed him and turned him evil, causing Danny to create as much destruction as he wanted and nearly destroyed Amity Park, but Valerie used ectoranium to throw him out of town and kept him out with the ghost shield, until breaking the force field with his new ghostly wail. In order to assure his past self's transformation into him he attempted to destroy Jazz, Tucker, and Sam, but was stopped by Danny, changing his time and turning Dark Phantom into an alternate Danny. After escaping Clockwork's prison, he went back in time to kill his 9 year old self, but ended up killing Jack and Maddie, and was again defeated by Danny.
 * His appearance is also a combination of The Phantom and Plasmius. He has light blue skin, white hair, and red eyes, and wears a white suit with thick black lines intercepting at his white belt, creating a "V", with a white "DP" symbol inside, with black pants and gloves and white boots. Like Vlad, Dark Phantom's ecto generation is red, but unlike Danny's blue mist from the mouth, Dark Phantom's ghost sense is a wisp of red mist that comes from his nose.
 * Daniel Radcliffe as Ghost Writer, a ghost author who has a keyboard that can make anything he types become real, and once tormented Danny by trapping him in a poem to teach Danny a lesson on Christmas, which Danny has a strong hatred for.
 * Jackie Earle Haley as Freakshow, a criminal circus ringmaster, who, like his family has done for generations, uses ghost for his circus, but decided to use them to steal. He successfuly used his sceptor to make The Phantom part of his crew, but Sam stopped him. Freakshow has returned numerous times with only one henchman left. Lydia, who is loyal to him without being controlled.
 * Men in White, a secret organization bent on eliminating all paranormal creatures, with The Phantom at the top of their list. Though the GIW leader, Hannah Murtaugh, knows that The Phantom is good hearted, she feels that he is too powerful to be walking around freely, as he disagrees to join them.

Other Recurring Characters

 * Rene Lavan and Amy Adams as Jack and Madeline Fenton, Danny and Jazz's parents, who were scientist bent on exploring the supernatural, leading them to create a device, only meant to view a world of ghost, it became a portal, and they were killed by a supernatural ghost, who was revealed to be Danny's evil alternate future self. After that, their son Danny was left to be raised by their nearly graduated daughter. They are seen many times throughout the series in pictures or flashbacks, including Danny's travel to the past, in which he learned that that they were killed before the explosion.
 * Jesse L. Martin as Damon Gray, Valerie's father and a faithful employee of Axion Labs. He is a calm, patient man who adores his daughter, but once he finds out about it, does not approve of her ghost hunting vendetta.
 * Paul Giamatti as Mr. Lancer, the vice-principal and english teacher at Casper High, who is very strict, especially with Danny. Though he usually targets Danny to pick on, it is only because of Danny's grade average, and he is really well-meaning just wanting Danny, and the rest of his students to do better.
 * Robbie Ammel as Aaron "Dash" Baxter, a popular high school football and basketball star, who constantly picks on Danny and Tucker, ironically, due to him looking up to The Phantom.
 * Daniella Monet as Paulina, a popular high school cheerleader who is rude and unbright.
 * Peyton List as Star, another Casper High cheerleader and Paulina's best friend.
 * Boo Boo Stewart as Kwan, an asian-american Casper High football player and Dash's best friend. Though he is popular and bullies the lesser known students as much as Dash, Kwan is a bit more reluctant to hurt others and can be smart and caring. He possibly only wanted popularity so that he can feel a sense of belonging.
 * John Henson and Jill Benjamin as Thurston and Pamela Manson, Sam's parents and the overall antithesis of their daughter, being a pair of super-optimistic socialites. They possess an enormous disdain of Sam's nonconformity and constantly try to steer her away from it.
 * Martin Lawrence and Tichina Arnold as Mr. and Mrs. Foley, Tucker's parents, who are also very intelligent.

Development
On January 30, 2013, it was announced that Nickelodeon would develop a television series reboot of their Television Show Danny Phantom for The CW and it would detail a new, but similar origin for Danny Fenton. Kriesberg stated that the character of Danny Fenton in the series would resemble his Nickelodeon counterpart, complete with his trademark black and white costume, and not be a poor imitation. Kreisberg elaborated: "No sweat suits or strange code names; he will be The Phantom." While researching the best way to depict his ghostly powers, Hartman stated that when he used his powers, The Phantom would give off a transparent ghostly aura, especially to depict his intangibility while walking through objects

Kreisberg stated that he wanted to re-introduce Danny Phantom, it's character, and the series' plot in a similar, but new way, that fans know and love can enjoy, but also make it original to introduce it to a new generation; First, by recreating the origin, similar to the original, but with a twist, including Danny's powers originating from the ghost portal, but a twist in which Jack and Maddie die five years earlier, by a supernatural creature, leaving Jazz, who is 22 in this series instead 16, to raise Danny.

The pilot was officially ordered on January 29, 2014, and was written by Berlanti, Kreisberg, and Johns, and directed by Nutter. On May 8, 2014, The Phantom was officially picked up as a series, with an initial order of 13 episodes. Three more scripts were ordered in September 2014 following a positive response to newly completed episodes by executives, while a back ten was ordered the next month for a full 23-episode season.

Design
The costume was designed by Colleen Atwood, who also designed the costumes for Arrow and The Flash. It features a black and white color scheme, a white wig, and white accents throughout, and went through multiple adjustments from the moment it was placed in computer renderings to the day of filming the pilot. Primarily made of leather, the suit contains areas with a stretchable material to allow Sprayberry room to bend. It initially took Sprayberry approximately 40 minutes to get into his costume.

Filming
Production on the pilot began in February 2014, with filming taking place in Portland, Oregon. On how sequences shot in the series compared to the animated fights in Danny Phantom, Sprayberry said "We do a lot of plate shots that are empty shots of the area we’re going to be in and then they’re putting us in later in post. I do a lot of the fighting and the choreography is a blast to learn. I don’t have to do it full speed and then they ramp it up. it's an amazing reboot, the action and fighting scenes are a lot more intense than the original show, I think people are going to like it."