With Universal PicturesThe Mummynow playing around the world, last week I sat down with directorAlex Kurtzmanfor an exclusive interview. During our wide-ranging conversation he talked about how the project came together, what he wanted to do with the action scenes, the importance of practically doing things and not replying on CG, deleted scenes, what it’s like to work withTom Cruiseand if he’s involved in the editing room, Easter eggs, future Dark Universe movies likeBill Condon’sBride of Frankenstein, and so much more. In addition, we talked aboutFringe, what fans can look forward to onStar Trek: Discovery, and the current TV landscape.
As most of you know,The Mummyputs a modern twist on the classic monster movie with Tom Cruise leading the fight against an ancient evil, played bySofia Boutella.The Mummyalso starsRussell Crowe,Annabelle Wallis,Jake JohnsonandCourtney B. Vance.
Warning: slight spoilers are discussed during this interview.
Collider: So how much talk was there about putting in an after the credit scene, which the film does not have?
KURTZMAN: There was no talk about putting in an after credit scene. Mostly because I think that’s Marvel’s domain, and we just didn’t feel that it would be appropriate or necessary. I know DC’s done it as well, and maybe down the line we’ll do it, but it wasn’t really a conversation for us.
Was there any talk at the beginning of the movie? It has the Dark Universe logo, and I was thinking as the movie finished it almost might have been a good way to end the movie, with that logo of Dark Universe. Was there ever any talk about that? Or was it always in the front?
KURTZMAN: It was always in the front, and a big deal for Universal, because they’ve never altered their logo before for anything. This was the first time that they’ve actually transformed their logo into something else. There have been movies that have mutated the logo based on the film or something, but never one logo turning into another. It was a big deal for them, and I think there was a lot of pride associated with it for them.
It definitely signifies they’re not screwing around in terms of what they’re hoping to do.
KURTZMAN: Yeah.
What did you learn makingPeople Like Usthat you wanted to apply to makingThe Mummy?
KURTZMAN: It’s a good question. I remember J.J. [Abrams] once telling me how glad he was that he had done theAliaspilot, and then theLostpilot, andMission, and thenTrek, and thenStar Wars. That each movie sort of grows exponentially in scale, and that you learn to tackle more and more as you go. I think that it was very helpful for me to handle a much, much smaller production. And the thing is that oddly, you’re always looking for the same thing. It’s just noisier on a big production, but the focus always has to be first and foremost, how do you take the small moments, and let those moments breathe, and let those moments live. Because those moments are the big moments, they inform the big moments. And I think that, obviously,People Like Us, it was all about the little moments. And I think it was really helpful to me, just to learn how to manage a set, learn how to manage actors, and I don’t know that it would’ve been as easy for me to jump in on something this big my first time out.
Blockbusters are commonplace nowadays. Having written them before, as a director, what did you want to do to ensure the action sequences inThe Mummystood out?
KURTZMAN: Practically, we wanted to use CGI as a tool to augment, but not to drive the storytelling. That meant we wanted to shoot in real locations. We wanted to do as many of our stunts in-camera as possible. We wanted to use CGI as a tool, as an almost invisible tool, to make the in-camera stuff enhanced. Tom does all of his own stunts. He won’t do it any other way, and that meant doing things like shooting the plane crash in real zero gravity in a real plane. It meant going to Namibia to shoot the opening action sequences and all the ancient Egypt flashbacks. And it meant generally building sets that hearken back to the scope, the scale, the beauty, and the grandeur of the original Universal Monsters sets. And not augmenting them with CGI extensions but, in fact, building them to scale, and then shooting them as if they were real locations.
I think it gives the audience a real sense of depth. We wanted people to feel immersed, completely immersed, in the reality of the experience. When you’re on that plane you’re in it as it’s going down as opposed to looking at it through glass. You know, CG is an amazing tool, and I think that sometimes for me the best CG is the CG you don’t even know is there. When it tends to be the driving force of the sequence I tend to feel a little bit more removed from the storytelling.
I still think that one of the best uses of CG recently was Shawn Levy inReal Steel. They built that robot, but then only used CG to move the arm. You really can’t tell that’s CG, but because it’s all practical.
KURTZMAN: Well, like the zombies at the end, those were all real dancers, and we spent six months doing movement training. And then what we ended up doing was removing hands and heads, so what you’re seeing is a body, and then we’d shrink the body down. You’re seeing real people moving, and what the eye tracks is that’s real movement. That’s not computer generated movement. But what you may’t tell is that their hands are replaced with their heads. Obviously, you can tell their head’s replaced, because they’re human skulls running around. But that was generally the approach all around was, you know, there’s only one stage of Ahmanet that’s transformation, that’s motion capture, and that’s still Sofia, and the rest of it is all Sofia. I was very meticulous in wanting to make sure that we were not replacing performance with CG performance.
How long was your first cut compared to the finished film?
KURTZMAN: It was never a long film funnily enough. We were probably just under 2 hours, and then shaved off another 20 minutes, which I think for our first cut is pretty right on. I tend to feel that for movies like this longer is not better. I think audiences are good around an hour and forty-five.
Was this like cutting the fat in scenes or did you lose any actual scenes?
KURTZMAN: We lost some scenes, but the movie went through, as all movies do, a real stage of expanding and contracting, and expanding, and contracting. Sometimes you’re looking at sequence and you think you don’t need something, and then you watch it and you realize how much it’s missing, and so you put it back in. I know some directors actually like to cut by taking as much out as early as possible and then adding back what they think they need as they watch the movie. We just went through a lot of back and forth. And obviously with all the visual effects, that changes the scope and scale of sequences as we go.
Did you cast Courtney B. Vance purely because of his work inHunt for Red October?
KURTZMAN: Yes. I had Jonsey on set, man, come on. Yeah …
I’m just throwing that out there.
KURTZMAN: I’ve been a fan of his forever, but obviouslyRed Octoberis a movie we all grew up on and loved.
I learned today that he’s in this movie. I didn’t realize that was Courtney, and then doing my research I realized it, and I’m like, “Get the F- out of here.”
KURTZMAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It’s crazy.
KURTZMAN: Jonsey.
KURTZMAN: I know.
For the upcoming eventual Blu-ray, is it going to have an extended cut? Or just some deleted scenes?
KURTZMAN: No, there’s just deleted scenes. Yeah, there wasn’t really … It’s extremely rare, in my experience, that you watch the deleted scenes on a cut and you go, wow, those really should have been in the movie. Usually, you understand why they were cut. And …
Unless it’sKingdom of Heaventhe director’s cut.
KURTZMAN: That’s true. Actually, you know what, I think I only saw the director’s cut. I didn’t see the original.
Yeah, the film cut is garbage.
KURTZMAN: Really?
And the director’s cut is unbelievably good.
KURTZMAN: Yeah, I thought it was really. I was sort of amazed when I watched it that it got kind of a bad rap, because I thought it was beautiful and really well done.
Well, imagine cutting forty minutes out of that movie and releasing it.
KURTZMAN: Yeah, well now I get it, yeah. But I would say for the most part then. Typically, I think when you see deleted scenes you kind of understand why they’re not in the movie.
So it’s like a few minutes?
KURTZMAN: Yeah, maybe. A total of four or five, maybe.
I’ve always been curious. How involved is Tom Cruise in the editing room?
KURTZMAN: Very, I mean, he’s involved in every aspect of the film. Absolutely everything. The minute he signs on we go through very extensive prep together, and I show him my designs, and I show him how I’m planning on doing sequences, and Tom loves to push it. He really loves to push the boundaries of what you may do as a filmmaker, and he’s always looking for a way to do something he hasn’t done before. Which, for a guy like Tom, who’s made as many movies as he has, that’s pretty impressive. Because we are both so committed to doing as much as practically as we could do, that meant really planning in advance where we were going to do it. The plane crash was a nine-month prep just for the plane crash, because it was storyboard, to PreVis, to half of it on the stage, to half of it in a real plane. And then a whole process in post. So you’re going through a lot of very meticulous detail work, and that will pretty much apply to everything.
Tom is extraordinary at focusing on performance, and one of the things that I received as a gift of his, as every director who does who works with him, is that he will give you everything in takes. And so when you’re sitting in the editing room going, maybe we need to dial it a little more this way, or dial it a little more that way, he’s given you that take. He is so attuned to what he has done, and he has kind of an amazing memory for what everyone else has done in the sequence that he’s often, I remember there was one take where I said this, and I did it this way. Or I remember Annabelle did it that way, or Sofia did it this way. And so we kind of go through it together, and we would just watch the cut over and over again.
He’s like a first AD on set?
KURTZMAN: No, I wouldn’t say he’s like a first AD on set. I think that he is …
I’m exaggerating.
KURTZMAN: Yeah, but he’s very … I guess in the sense that when Tom walks on set, in a blink, he can tell you exactly what’s going on with the lighting, exactly where the cameras are. His first question is what lens are we on, and he knows exactly how to maneuver himself around based on all those variables. I’ve never actually seen anything like it. I’ve worked with some incredibly experienced actors, who obviously know how to play to the lens, but Tom has a very unique way of going about it. It’s kind of extraordinary. I think sometimes he’s performing in the scene while also behind the camera in his mind. I noticed him do that a couple times, and I marveled at his ability to do that, because it’s only the result of making as many movies as he’s made.
Let’s talk about Easter eggs. Obviously there’s a lot in the dialogue that Russell Crowe utters. But are there other little things that people should be on the lookout for? Or Easter eggs towards future things that Universal’s thinking about doing?
KURTZMAN: There are several Easter eggs, yes. When Tom first enters the Prodigium facility there are two, in the fight scene there’s one, and obviously in the sand storm there’s one.
Yeah, I definitely want to get more specific at some point. You had some very good screenwriters working on this thing. How much from when you first got involved, to what people are seeing on screen, how much of the story and the big elements change as a result of the pre-production process and making a movie?
KURTZMAN: A ton, a ton. If you look at the early drafts you’ll see that there are some key structural tenants that were in place sort of through all the drafts. Starting in modern day in the Middle East, going to London, ending with a chase sequence through London. The big moves were there. Prodigium, about halfway through the film, that was always there. What changed a lot when Tom came on board was his character arc.
One of the things that Tom does, I think uniquely, and it’s a very special thing. He makes incredibly unlikeable characters very likable, and he’s not afraid to play those characters. If you look atEdge of Tomorrow, if you look atJerry Maguire,Rain Man,Collateral, he loves to play very broken people. And for me, as an audience member, it’s much more satisfying to watch someone go from being as morally challenged as those guys are, to where they end up at the end of the film. And he’s very, very good at tracking his own journey through that, and we worked on that all the time. When [Christopher] McQuarrie came on board, and obviously Tom and McQuarrie do a ton of work together, I really loved their relationship.
The three of us got very close, and I loved that they have their own history together, and that Tom and I have our own history together. I really leaned on McQuarrie a lot when we were shooting, because I think that when you’re handling a film this big, what I experienced is I think sometimes it’s detrimental to be the writer and the director at the same time. Now that I’ve done both, my interpretation is that the director has to stay at 30,000 feet a lot of the time, and the writer’s working in the minutiae, the small linkage in the scenes. When you’re putting those two things together, sometimes it can make you not fully focused on either job. To have McQuarrie through it was, for me, just a huge, huge blessing.
One of the things I loved was in the third act, seeing Tom get the shit kicked out of him.
KURTZMAN: Yes, definitely.
With him getting just smacked down, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do in another movie.
KURTZMAN: Yeah, yeah.
Let’s talk about that.
KURTZMAN: I love that you loved it, because I loved it too. It’s so funny, because I think very few actors would have allowed themselves to be beaten as badly as they were. To watch Sofia do it, I think was really interesting, and fun, and subversive in my mind in some ways. We were really into the idea of doing it practically. When you see Sofia smack Tom, and he goes down, he’s going down. And the idea, we were like, we are not going to play this in cuts, we are going to stay wide, because we want the audience to feel the experience of his pain and go, “oh my god, she’s really doing it.” In the same way that on the plane when Tom and Annabelle are spinning through there, we’re not playing it in cuts, because we wanted the audience to feel what it was like.
We talked about that a lot, trying to choreograph longer takes, and hold on shots longer, and let the scenes breathe so the audience could feel immersed in the reality of it. For me, as a director, that was really fascinating, because I think some of my favorite directors choreograph in-camera, in singles, and it’s a beautiful things to watch when it works. It’s just more immediate, and immersive, and you don’t feel like the moments are being fabricated, but in fact are playing out right in front of you. And Tom was like, I’m going to take these hits, just go for it. Sofia just whacks him down first by the water, and then on the stairs, and it’s brutal.
What we did was we pre-choreographed all of that, shot it on a stage in warehouse with our camera crew, with all the same lenses, and all the coverage. We shot the whole sequence. Went into the editing room, cut it, looked at it, and said we like this, we don’t like that. I can’t imagine that we would have been able to get it done in the time that we had, given how much coverage was involved in the scene, without having prepped it and shot it twice.
Prior planning prevents poor performance.
KURTZMAN: Totally. And that was the other thing, is warming into performance, finding the moments. What was fascinating was that because we were prepared certain spontaneous things came out when we were shooting that were really fun that were not planned, like Sofia licking his face. That was just a moment that happened. I was sitting there watching the choreography and I was like, “something’s missing from this moment, I can’t quite, I’m looking for a laugh here, I can’t figure it out. Oh, she’s got to lick his face.” And then I went over to Tom, and I said, hear me out, I think she’s got to lick your face. And he went, what? And I saw his eyes look up. When his eyes look up, I always know that Tom is shooting it in his head. I can see him, and then he went, okay, I got it, I got it. And then she went for it with his face like six times.
The end of the film Tom has gained some new powers. When Sofia gained powers she had a physical transformation. Was there a lot of talk of altering how Tom would look? Because he still kind of looks like Tom Cruise, and I’m in my mind, I’m sort of like, well, he looks like Tom Cruise because it’s Tom Cruise. you may’t cover him that much. How much is that sort of a result of him being Tom Cruise, and how much were you guys debating is he going to have a transformation physically? Or is this something that we’re going to play on in a future kind of thing?
KURTZMAN: There was a ton of conversation about it, and a ton of R&D about it. We did a lot of design work to see how far we could push it. The most extreme look for Tom is the sort of the moment where he screams at camera, and that’s when his face transforms and becomes the most monstrous, where his teeth go out, and his eyes change. We had done versions where the shape of his face had mutated much wider, and I think we all really liked it. We thought it was super cool. When we started cutting the movie, what we realized was that scene less was far scarier than letting the audience linger on the face. I think all bets are off in terms of where we go next. The idea is that he’s kind of going in and out of looking like Tom, and then looking like something else, and obviously he’s in the shadows for a bulk of the ending. That was very much by design, because we want the audience leaning into, wait, what has he become? When you see him at the end of the film his face is essentially covered. Again, all you’re seeing is his eyes.
Is that so, for a future installment…
KURTZMAN: Could he look a lot worse?
KURTZMAN: Yeah, for sure.
It’s basically you guys haven’t exactly figured it out.
KURTZMAN: We actually did work out a design, and then decided to pull back and go with less. We have a very extreme design for him, but you’re right. What was interesting to me was looking at it and going, “wow, I’ve never seen Tom Cruise… it’s Tom Cruise, I’ve never seen him look like that before.” And again, the question became how far do we want to go now? How much do we want to leave room for the future?
Well, the other thing is that, let’s be honest, it’s Tom Cruise.
KURTZMAN: Exactly.
There’s an element of the audience wants to see Tom, and there’s that balancing act of …
KURTZMAN: Yeah, of going back and forth, but I think the idea is that he will go back and forth. That’s in the DNA now of his story. He’s got two things inside of him.
One of the things I think the film did really well is that you’re playing everything very realistically. The mercury, the rules and regulations, if you will, of these characters are being played in a grounded way. Talk about a little bit about that aspect of the film. And is this something that all the rest of the monster movies are going to be playing with?
KURTZMAN: It was very important to me to try and ground it in a reality, and when I say a reality I mean an emotional reality. The mercury, for example, came from my research into Ancient Egypt. And it turned out that mercury, which was as rare then as it is now, they believed was a ward against evil spirits. When I was looking for what’s her kryptonite, that came up as an interesting idea, and I’d never seen anything really like that on film before. I thought the visual of the sarcophagus coming out of the mercury, and her being buried in the mercury, and the mercury being injected into her veins was a really compelling and weird image.
I think that grounding it in an emotional reality, and in a more real world reality, has helped us distinguish from the otherMummymovies. Which, by the way, I’m a fan of. I love the original Karloff movie, which is really where I took the bulk of my inspiration. I really like the Brendan FrasierMummy, and I think that it would be disrespectful to look at those films and say, we’re not going to tip our hats to them in many ways. But our tone needed to define itself very differently. If you’re a fan of those films, I wanted you to recognize that we’re respecting them, but if you haven’t seen those films, then I wanted you to come into a totally new world and feel like our tone is different. Merely by putting it in the modern day we’re changing the game in terms of we’re now in reality. We’re in a less cartoony world. And that was important, but I think that’s kind of where films are living now more or less, these bigger films.
You’re involved withBride of Frankenstein. I think it’s amazing that Bill Condon’s doing it.
KURTZMAN: So good.
It’s crazy that of all the people…
KURTZMAN: Yeah, the director ofGods and Monstersis doing it, I know. I’m so excited.
What can you tease people about how the script, or how it’s shaping up, or what you’re excited about it?
KURTZMAN: David Koepp wrote the script. It’s really good. If you look at the originalBride, it is one of the weirdest movies ever made. It is truly a strange movie, and the bride doesn’t appear until the end of the film. She’s been built to be Frankenstein’s mate, and she takes one look at him and rejects him utterly, and he gets so angry, and he pulls the lever, and the building explodes, and that’s the end of the movie. You’re like, I have no idea what just happened, but it was amazing.
It’s fascinating to me that she, as a character, with no dialogue for generation, after generation, after generation has been remembered. I think she’s been remembered for her defiance. I think she’s been remembered for her independence. She’s certainly been remembered for her iconic look. I love that, and I think that Bill’s going to do something amazing with it.
Also, Javier Bardem’s going to be in it? That’s also crazy. He is very selective with his work.
KURTZMAN: He’s one of the greatest actors in the history of time. I’m so excited.
I want to reminisce and go backwards for a second, because I lovedFringe. When you think back on the making ofFringeis there anything that you remember, or anything, you know what I mean? What’s the big …
KURTZMAN: As it relates toMummyor justFringein general?
JustFringein general.
KURTZMAN:Fringewas born of me, and J.J., and Bob [Orci] loving David Cronenberg and saying, if David Cronenberg made a television show what would it look like? That idea of combining science with sort of what’s on the other side of the supernatural door, and how those two things merge, and an investigative show with that kind of an engine was very exciting to me. The casting was, I loved the cast. I think sometimes the pilot’s that make it, in my experience, the pilot’s that make it to air and become very successful, you end up casting everybody at the 11th hour. Very rarely do you have them well in advance, and that was one where all of them were cast at the 11th hour. We found Anna, I think she was in Australia in the Outback or something, and she had not really acted before, and she sent in an audition tape, and we were like, bring her in, bring her in. It was an amazing experience.
I loved that show. I was thinking the other day about how much I miss Nimoy on it, and how amazing it was that we got him to do that show. Someone was asking me about working with him, and I had this pang of missing of him, and remembering betweenTrekandFringewhat a lovely, lovely guy he was, and remembering our early conversations with him about playing Bell, and how excited he was by it. He just had such a wonderful, wonderful mind. Fox was very supportive of the show even though we, I say we only went 100 episodes, and people wanted more. But it was a show that very tricky. It did really weird things. It was extremely atypical. A lot of people didn’t get it, and then a lot of people were diehard fans of it. Fox kept it on for awhile even though ratings weren’t great, and it’s a show I’m still super proud of, because I just feel like there’s not enough of that on TV.
Sure. I’ll say that it started a little slow for me, but once it kicked into drive I watched it religiously.
KURTZMAN: Where did it kick into drive for you? Was it like in first season?
Yeah, it was maybe five or six episodes in.
The first few episodes didn’t pull me. I was like, there’s something here, do you know what I mean?
But I really appreciated…I just like sci-fi.
KURTZMAN: Totally. Totally.
TVs never been better than it is right now.
KURTZMAN: Oh my god, it’s unbelievable right now.
You can argue that it’s better than feature films.
KURTZMAN: It’s not even an argument.
Mostly because you have eight hours with someone, and you can peel back layers. In a movie, you have to make someone… you have to explain who they are in a key scene.
KURTZMAN: And resolve it in less than two hours.
Right, exactly, so I have to ask. With TV the way it is, is making feature films what you want to spend the next number of years doing? Or with your history with TV, which is vast, is telling a compelling limited series show, with 8 or 10 episodes, where your head is at?
KURTZMAN: It’s a timely question.
I understand. Contracts are being signed.
KURTZMAN: I actually, no, there’s no contracts. I had an idea that’s in the vein ofFringethat I’m really excited about recently.
Oh, you’re talking my language.
KURTZMAN: That’s bubbling up and percolating for me, and I’m excited about it. Let’s break it down. I think that the film business right now is changing very erratically. What’s very interesting is that coming out of television, studios are, as obviously with Dark Universe, Marvel, DC, the strategy now is to look at the board much more like you would look at a season of television. Television you say, I’m going to do a pilot, and then I’m going to put my stakes down for these three big moves that happen over the course of the first season, and then I’m going to aim to get to this place at the end of my season, and that will set up my second season.
As you say, in film, you’re looking at three acts, and that would be the equivalent of maybe of three hours of television, maybe. You’re breaking it in maybe two and a half episodes. Obviously, the way we are telling stories now in film is changing. In the case ofThe Mummy, I wanted it to be a standaloneMummymovie that opened the door to the larger Dark Universe, but I never wanted the agenda Dark Universe to take away from it being a satisfyingMummymovie. And yet, if you’re going to be building a world, you may’t not do that, you know what I mean? That’s the tricky thing about it.
And there is still some cynicism about it. I think people are, you know, what is not interpreted as, oh, you’re trying to sell me a universe. Which, by the way, I totally get. I feel that all the time. You’re trying to sell me a universe is almost identical to what is happening on television in terms of the way people are telling stories. You’re just expanding them, and opening them up, and creating off shoots, and following them through over the course of hours instead of an hour and a half or two hours. But there is something spectacular about television right now, and I think that television is, and has always been, made for the writer’s voice.
And that not only has not changed, it’s actually gotten stronger and more powerful, and writer’s voices have gotten stronger and more powerful as a result. And obviously between so many of the amazing shows that are on television right now it’s hard not to be pulled into how attractive that is. How exciting it is as a writer just to play in that arena.
Well, the other thing is that even though I lovedFringe, and I lovedAlias, I would argue that both of those shows would be stronger if you had less episodes, and you could make a story. I view 10 to 13 episodes as the perfect amount of time for a season just when you’re telling a big story. 22 is just hard.
KURTZMAN: 22 is really tough. And by the way, 22 lends itself much more to a non-serialized format, where each episode is a case, and by the end the case closes. It’s much easier to do that, even though it’s hard to do that in 22, it’s much easier to do that in 22. When you’re aiming for serialized 22? Forget it. You’re right, I agree with you 100%.
But that’s how all these shows burn out.
KURTZMAN: That’s right.
It just is frustrating to me that I wish the networks, which they’re never going to do this, but I really do wish the networks would. If you’re going to a big show, you do 13 in the fall, and then in the spring in that time slot you do another show. Come back in the fall with the, you know what I mean? That’s why everyone’s migrating to Netflix, or Amazon, or FX, or you name it.
KURTZMAN: Look, here’s the other thing that’s happening, and you know this to be true. The line between film and television is utterly blurred. Not just at a storytelling level, but visually now. What we’re doing onStar Trekright now, that’s not that different from what we’re doing in the movies. I think that’s what people expect when they pay for Netflix, or for HBO, or whatever they’re going to pay for. That actually makes, as a storyteller, it makes it, in the many ways, you’re not limited by oh, we could never really do that on television scope wise because now, take a look atGame of Thrones. That’s a movie.
They also have 100 million dollars per year to tell a crazy story. But before we run out of time, because I haven’t even addressed it yet withStar Trek, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. Have to ask. Brian Fuller was involved at the beginning. He’s no longer involved. Are any of his foot prints still left on the show, or is it just sort of gone?
KURTZMAN: No, absolutely, his foot prints are left on the show. Someone once described Brian to me as a unicorn, and that’s just the truth. He’s a one of a kind writer. He’s just unbelievably brilliant, and I really, really loved working with him, and I loved seeing the way that his mind worked. Brian was very involved inAmerican Gods, and I think that the scope and scale of whatTrekhas become made it so that Brian elected to say, I don’t want to short change either of these two things. They’re both sort of beloved to him. We sat down and we figured out how are we going to take what we can have of you, and continue that through not only this season ofTrek, but hopefully set up things that are coming in next season. Much of what’s there in terms of story, and certainly in terms of set-up character, big ideas, the big movement of the season, that’s all stuff that Brian and I talked about.
What excites you? What do you sort of want to tell people who are excited about the show? Nervous about the show? Are curious about the show? What do you want to tell them?
KURTZMAN: Here’s what I say, I think when we’re closer toTrektime we should sit down and talk about it, because we’ll be able to talk about it in detail.
That’s not a hard sell.
KURTZMAN: Yeah, no, no, it’s great. Fantastic. I look forward to that. I’m really excited for everybody to seeTrek, and I was extremely pleased with the reception that our trailer got. It was awesome. It was really cool. All I’m going to say now is that you’re talking about a show that’s being written by a room full of fans, who all have very different relationships toTrek, and I think that’s healthy, and it’s a good thing. They love different aspects ofTrek, and we’re really, really excited with how the scripts are going. The scripts are going great. We postponed our schedule, because the truth is we did not want to put out something that was sub-par. And as the vision expanded it, we started feeling like we weren’t going to be able to deliver the scope and scale that was on the page. CBS was extremely supportive in saying, okay, you know what, this is cable, this streaming. It’s not like we have to be out right away. Let’s do the best version of this.Trekis too important for all of us.
Have you released or revealed who’s directing these episodes?
KURTZMAN: We have sort of released and revealed. We haven’t revealed all of them.
I would imagine there’s a lot ofStar Trekfans that might want to helm an episode. I’m just guessing.
KURTZMAN: Not only fans, but actors. So many actors are fans. So many. We literally got a list of them that were like, here are people who said they want to be onStar Trek. It was awesome.
You mean for cameos and stuff?
KURTZMAN: Yeah, or just to be in an episode, or to come in and out.
You’re saying to me that there might be a bunch of Easter eggs to be looking out for.
KURTZMAN: Not … There might be. There might be. We’re still building some of those.
Where are you in the shoot?
KURTZMAN: We’re shooting episode five.
You’re into it.
KURTZMAN: Yeah, we’re definitely. We’re well into it, and we have scripts beyond that.
One of the things that I thinkStar Trekhas failed to do till now is the ability to tell stories that were maybe too risky, avant-garde, whatever they may be, because of the time periods. 60s, 90s… WithStar Trek: Next Generation, I don’t necessarily know you could tell certain stories then.
KURTZMAN: Give me an example.
Maybe some gay storylines. Maybe some …
KURTZMAN: You don’t have to worry about that.
See, that’s what I wanted to address. The fact that we’re in a different era of storytelling.
KURTZMAN: Totally. Completely.
IsStar Treksort of pushing into new things?
KURTZMAN: Yes, for sure. For sure.
I like that answer.
KURTZMAN: Like I said, we’ll talk about it more, but I don’t feel that, going back to what you said about where television is at right now. It would be foolish of us to not only ignore it, but not to take advantage of the fact that that’s how people are consuming stories, and they’re hungrier for more complicated stories. What would’ve been a taboo subject ten, fifteen years ago is now everywhere, and that’s a beautiful thing.
