How ‘Obliterated’ Creators Blew Out a Movie Idea Into a Series (VIDEO)
Jackpot!
Netflix‘s raunchy action-comedy Obliterated dropped last week and it is blowing up. Currently #2 in their Top 10, the wild ride about an elite team of Special Forces operatives (led by Nick Zano‘s McKnight and Shelley Hennig‘s Ava) racing to save Las Vegas from a terrorist’s bomb has had quite the journey to the small screen.
“[We] have been talking about for a long time,” says Jon Hurwitz, who joined co-showrunners, writers and fellow Cobra Kai EPs Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald in Sin City last month to discuss the series. “It was originally a feature idea that we were thinking of, but every time we tried to tackle it, it always felt like we didn’t have enough real estate on the page.”
Noting that in 120-page feature film script didn’t leave much room “to dig in” to characters like team helicopter pilot Paul (played by Eugene Kim), the bomb expert Haggerty (C. Thomas Howell) and tech-geek Maya (Kimi Rutledge), Hurwitz & Co. are happy that they held off until they could unleash this beast on streaming. “We wanted this to be a big ensemble project, so as time went on, and we ended up making Cobra Kai and [got] that experience of making serialized television,” he continues, “Immediately, we looked at each other like ‘This would be an incredible TV series!'”
Ursula Coyote/Netflix
One that takes a bit more work than most shows, that is. And not just because the cast had to pull off comedy, drama, and stunts while shooting in some heavily trafficked Vegas locales. Given how specifically trained the agents are supposed to be (even though most of them spend half the season under the influence), there needed to be a level of reality to their roles. Thankfully, the cast was up to the challenge of learning how members of a top-level operation with handle tactical equipment and arms. “They came ready with their A-game,” says military consultant Kevin Kent, praising the actors for going “the extra mile to …making these characters their own.”
Speaking of extra miles, was there anything the producers had to edit out because they went too far? “There is very little, if anything on the cutting room floor,” confirms Heald. “There is nothing we cut because we went too far. We went too far, and you’re seeing [that]!”
And if you have seen the show’s jaw-dropping torture scene, you know what he’s talking about and very likely flinching at the memory.
Watch the full video above for more.
Obliterated, Streaming Now, Netflix
