‘Butterfly’ Bosses on Expanding From Graphic Novel for ‘Family Drama Set Against a Spy Show’

It’s all lies, spies and family ties in this adrenalized adaptation of Butterfly, Boom! Studios’ graphic novel about former U.S. intelligence agent David Jung (star and exec producer Daniel Dae Kim), who must revisit his past after being targeted for termination by a young operative named Rebecca (Reina Hardesty). Think shades of Alias in Asia.

“It’s a family drama set against a spy show,” says co-exec producer Ken Woodruff, who has also set the hybrid tale against the fascinating backdrop of Dae Kim’s birth country. “We filmed the entire season in South Korea, over 20 different cities throughout,” he continues. “I think we had 70 or 68 days on location and only eight days on set. I mean, we were really on the move the entire time. All the people that worked on the show said that I had seen more of Korea than any Korean people that they knew because we were everywhere.”

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That meant hitting spots both hot and not. “We were in really nice areas and then we’re also in these areas where it’s much lower, just back-alleys and stuff like that,” Woodruff continues, noting the show’s tweak to the source material. “The graphic novel was an incredible starting point for us, [because it] gave us a lot of the themes. It was actually set in Europe with different nationality characters, but when Daniel Dae Kim got involved, we had the idea to switch it to Korea. And that just opened up the whole show and just made it so much more interesting to us, especially in the spy genre where so much of it’s set either in the Middle East or in Europe. This felt very fresh and very new.”

Still, he admits, there were some limitations on the page. “It’s a graphic novel, so it’s not enough content on its own to fill out six full episodes. But the setup and the core dynamics, I think, were there from the beginning. And once we switched it to Korea and had to flesh out the characters, we did have to invent a lot.”

Courtesy of Prime

And while the first season is a tight half-dozen of fast-paced, action-infused episodes, there is a slow-burn sense to certain reveals between Rebecca and David. “Everything is so pressing that it almost felt like we had to hold them off,” series writer and EP Steph Cha explains. “The Rebecca character is so dying to know answers immediately from the get-go that there’s that tension of ‘she’s going to find out,’ but they still have to [handle] things. And that’s part of the challenge… This show is not an easy one to write because we’re kind of trying to service both of these goals.”

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So strap in. The emotional — and life-or-death — stakes for both David and Rebecca become clear early on as Rebecca suspects her maternal boss (Piper Perabo) may be keeping secrets about the real mission. This, of course, is after a jaw-dropping fight sequence staged inside a glass elevator that is a thrill to behold. “We wanted people to come in for [the espionage] and then be moved and kept in by the family dynamics,” Cha states. “The personal stuff has to matter.”

Butterfly, Series Premiere, Wednesday, August 13, Prime Video