Posted in: SYFY, TV | Tagged: revival

Revival Series Creators on Expanding Upon Comics Narrative & More

Revival showrunners Luke Boyce and Aaron B. Koontz spoke with us about their SYFY series adaptation, expanding on the comics, and more.

When Luke Boyce got the rights to adapt the Tim Seeley and Mike Norton Image Comic Revival for the screen, his ambitions started at a cinematic level. Still, thanks to SYFY and co-creator Aaron B. Koontz, the possibilities can go way beyond Boyce's or even Norton and Seeley's dreams. Revival follows a rural Wisconsin town where the recently deceased suddenly rise from their graves and act just like they once were. When local officer and single mother Dana Cypress (Melanie Scrofano) is unexpectedly thrown into the center of a brutal murder mystery of her own, she's left to make sense of the chaos amidst a town gripped by fear and confusion where everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect. Boyce and Koontz spoke to Bleeding Cool about their original ambitions to expand the comic, working with Norton and Seely creatively to expand their narrative beyond the designs of the 47-issue comics, the advantages of TV, and working with the core cast of Scrofano, Romy Weltman, David James Elliot, and Andy McQueen.

Revival Creators on Expanding TV Series Beyond the Original Image Comic Designs

Bleeding Cool: When you were both tasked to adapt 'Revival' as a TV series, what goals did you want to establish?

Koontz: When it first started, this was a passion project for Luke from the get-go. He had known Tim (Seeley) for a while, got the rights, and brought me on after we worked together in another movie. So much of this was, "How do we take 47 amazing issues and try to narrowly focus it on something that can hook the non-comic fans in a way that can then still give the comic people what they're looking for and find that balance. We honed in on the Cypress story, the family, right? Within that, this idea of a murder mystery where a person's still alive. I mean, I've never seen that before. It's such a cool hook, and that's what immediately hooked us and ourselves. We saw that the first issue was the pilot. It played out so perfectly, and then from there, we took some wild swings. At the same time, you'll feel the comic like permeating through moments and characters combining and going a direction you didn't think they might go, which was a lot of fun.

When it came to working with Mike and Tim on the show, were there discussions about where you wanted to end, issue-wise, at a good stopping point for season one? How do you want to space out the 47 issues for TV?

Boyce: That's hard to answer because I don't want to tell you necessarily where we go with it, but first, Mike and Tim were incredibly gracious. Anything we wanted to do, they were all for it. In fact, there were many times we would run something by Tim, and he'd be like, "Oh man! I wish I thought of that." He's like, "That is great." We had their blessing to take things, and we took a lot of touchstones from the comic stuff that we love. Aaron and I had this mirror board, and we would put all these big events in the comic and be like, "Okay, we really want this to happen. How do we get there in an organic way and in a way that our characters can naturally get there so it feels new, but it's also familiar?" We have these touchstone moments throughout the show that we get to in interesting ways, so it feels familiar for comic fans, and it should be fun.

Koontz: I'll add to that, Tom. We do have multiple seasons mapped out in our heads for things that we want to do, but at the same time, you might find out that some things that happen toward the end of the comic happen toward the end of season one, but it doesn't mean we're done with the comic. It's a pick and choose, move it around, there are puzzle pieces on a board, and we're making a new image out of it, no pun intended. That's where this is coming from, but it's a complicated process, for sure.

What are the advantages of adapting a comic to TV provides you?

Koontz: It's insane having the privilege to adapt this to a TV show. Luke was trying to make it a movie for the longest time, but what's so interesting is that we talked a lot about what happens between the panels. What are those things? What are those interesting moments? Even Time and Michael will tell you there were things they wish they had done, but because the comic became so successful, they were like having to pump out new issues in the middle, quickly. Then they're like, "Oh, here's an idea we have, or we never got to fully do it, or they tease some things that didn't fully get there."

Having those conversations, understanding some of their intentions and where it was going, then we were like, "Well, let's build off that." You know, like I would read something and think, "It feels like you're trying to say this." I'm like, "Yeah, we thought maybe down the road we could get there, and then we'll go there. Let's get there in the show and find a way to do that." The Cyprus family, in particular, we wanted to build up Wayne (David James Elliot) a little bit more. Let's talk about the mother who's not prevalent in the comic. How do you find ways to take what's there, look between the panels, and then inform characterization into what were already amazing characters that someone might have created?

What did Melanie, Romy, David, and Andy bring as far as being the core of the cast and bringing the spirit of the comic to the screen with their characters?

Boyce: Melanie is incredible. She's hilarious. She immediately embodied who we felt Dana was in the comic, this amazing, sardonic, witty, headstrong, messy individual, but driven and smart. That's one of the best things about Dana is how naturally smart she is in solving this mystery. With Romi, she immediately blew us away. She embodied this character (of Em) in ways we hadn't expected. David is amazing as Wayne. He IS Wayne in many different ways, and their dynamic together. When we first got them together, we had a family meeting, and we could immediately tell that they all had this organic, special chemistry we knew was going to come across on screen.

Koontz: David was literally telling them what to do at certain moments, and we're like, "Okay, this is totally tracking," but it all started with our Dana. It started with Melanie, and then we filled in the gaps around that. We wanted her to be that first domino, and Mel completely slayed it. We were like, "Put some freckles on her and we're good to go, man." This is Dana in every way, and we did. Andy McQueen, who plays Ibrahim, was absolutely wonderful. He's a scene stealer. When you see what he does, especially in some of his later episodes, he's so moving and powerful. We lucked out. I believe wholeheartedly that people are going to fall in love with these characters. We cried on set watching them multiple times, and then we're laughing. I'm almost ruining takes, laughing in between other times. It was one of those kinds of environments, and that all starts with having such an amazing cast like that.

Revival, which also stars CM Punk, Gia Sandhu, and Katharine King, premieres June 12th on Syfy and is available to stream on Peacock the following week.

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