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A show that could fill anER-size hole in the networks Thursday-night programming or else fail miserably trying.
Still, some critics praisedKings.
Indeed,Kingswas not the last eccentric drama on online grid TV incredibly, NBC would produceHannibalin 2013.
But its even harder to get that throne back once youve lost it.
But is it a hallucination?
A figment of Silass paranoia?
Or does God actually exist in this world, and is He signaling his chosen successor?
Michael Green, creator:The show was nothing like anything else on web link television.
I dont know what it was.
Istilldont know what it was.
But you cant necessarily say its a family drama.
Its more epic than that.
Julie Martin,writer:Its like science fiction.
But also like a Bible story.
Francis Lawrence, director and executive producer:I liked the parallels to the story of David.
But I also liked using that as a template and telling a story that wouldnotfeel like a religious story.
Brian Cox (Vesper Abaddon):I thought it was a very bold idea.
Id always been interested in the King David story.
I was on a trip in Israel around 2005.
Its funny I thought,You could see one of those birdscrapping in King Davids wine goblet.
Like everyone at that time, I believed that big swords-and-sandals storytellingwas only for HBO.
And at the end of the pilot, theres this beautiful butterfly reveal.
It pulls you up.
What Id really like to do is double-check our audience has a toehold.
And, of course, it was passed on by Kevin Reilly.
They were very enamored with the mythology in the King David lore.
I found that world sort of brittle and not particularly engaging.
My agent sent it over to FX, and they took an interest.
I remember having a meeting with them they said, How would you rewrite this for our tone?
and getting really excited.
I think something might be happening over here.
Pope:It was a very crazy time at NBC and I think for online grid TV in general.
They gaveTheWest Winga standing ovation; thats what we could hope for!
Green:Heres what I know about Ben Silverman.
And I felt, looking out at the landscape of television, there was just not anything like it.
But the other thing with a figure like that is sometimes theyll just put anything on the air.
This is going to be awards; this is going to be culture.
None of this would be cheap to commit to screen.
Lawrence:I was finishing makingI Am Legendat the time.
We just havent been able to crack it, and I think you just did.
Erwin Stoff, executive producer:What I loved about it, frankly, was its ambition.
It was a huge pilot.
In battle scenes, it might read a little bit like World War I in terms of trench warfare.
I was really trying to wrap my head around Michaels intentions.
Because the Americans havent had a war on their land since the Civil War, right?
But Europe is covered in wars.
Every ten years, theres a war.
We should marrythe old and the new.
Lawrence:Michael and I both needed to convince everybody to do it in New York.
That feels like a real capital.
It gives us tons of possibilities.
But it was not cheap.
But it was still quite a challenge.
Essentially,we were creating another world.
Green:You cant shoot a show, certainly not an ambitious one, without a tax credit.
A lot of places and people opened their doors to us.
BAM let us take over the main entrance.
The Apthorp building was like a second home.
Hempstead House on Long Island.
Lawrence:We had amazing luck on this job.
I want to say, like, $1,000 or something.
We shot the battle scenes out at Far Rockaway.
It was some new residential housing project they were going to be putting up.
Youre going,Wow, thats very exciting!
Lulick:Tanks are tricky.
First, we had to find them, and we had to ensure they worked.
Francis wanted them to work, which is valid.
Then they have to be moved at night.
They have to travel in the later hours, when theres no rush hour.
They have to go over certain bridges.
Green:We really wanted to use Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Francis and I wound up putting the money up ourselves out of our fees.
Lawrence:I wanted to check that the show had some scope.
Lulick:All shows are challenging, but this was especially challenging.
There was always a touch of spiritual beauty to it.
It was such an appealing project thatKingsmanaged to recruit not one but two Bakers of character-actor fame.
Kim Miscia (casting director):Kingswas the most exciting data pipe pilot of the season.
Actors were fighting for the roles.
We saw actors in N.Y., L.A., and across the globe.
Green: Sebastian Stan was the first major role we cast.
And yet Sebastian Stan came in, read for Jack, and it was like, Were done.
We dont need to bring in another one.
It was only one audition.
Green:Historically for actors, I never have someone in mind.
Its always an invisible face.
For Silas, that was not true; I always imagined him as Ian McShane.
It was for people who considered themselves film actors and thought TV was beneath them.
And I said, This was written for him!
I remember we were all a little skeptical that Ian would really consider.
Pope:I remember falling on my sword for the Ian McShane deal.
He did not want to do a six-year deal; he wanted to do one year.
I said, Michael has a plan!
The character is going to die!
Its hilarious now, because everybody makes one- or two-year deals.
I think we ultimately made him a three-year deal.
I was just about to go back to England and do a movie.
We managed to fit in the pilot for this.
But we needed someone who could evolve over time into something more sinister.
At the last minute, we discovered Chris while combing through taped auditions from Australia.
He had this earnestness mixed in with his charisma, and it was like,Eureka!
Hes our golden boy.
Christopher Egan (David):It was one of my first big jobs.
But whenKingscame about, I was like,Okay this is interesting.
I grew up in a pretty religious household, so I was very familiar with the story.
Then I got flown to New York, and I read for Michael and Francis Lawrence.
Youre going back to New York, and youre going to start shooting.
Susanna Thompson (Queen Rose Benjamin):I remember it came in pretty fast.
My agent and manager said, This looks really good.
They would like you to run over and be put on tape in Los Angeles.
I think everyone else was in New York already in terms of the producers and Michael.
It was the first time, actually, I had auditioned via a form of Skype, I guess.
TheKingsvests still get used by everyone.
On any given set, youll run into yourKings-vest people.
And I remember thinking,This is the sexiest offer out there.
Do you remember that movieThe American Presidentwhen Annette Bening gets a phone call from the president?
Thats how I felt.
Green:Seeing the actors in something else like seeing Sebastian Stan inDestroyerand going,Fuck yeah!
Told ya he was great!
I feel that pride on the casting level, absolutely.
Every one of them.
How Much Faith Do You Need?
The series idea of morality and judgment is bound up in that ambiguity.
Lawrence:My first two movies had elements of God in them, and I found it quite polarizing.
I wanted to check that it didnt feel like that.
I wanted it to be as universal as possible.
And that was great.
We wanted it to work on both levels.
That was part of what was so cool it was this persons interpretation of God.
This is how a king, who is a narcissist, sees his relationship to God.
You get to decide for yourself how supernatural it is.
Martin:Michael and I sat down and were figuring out the iconic biblical tales we wanted to tell.
It met with zero resistance internally.
I wanted Jack to struggle.
He didnt think he was a great person and then hes forced to look in this mirror of David.
I was really interested to play out when David became aware of Jacks feelings for him.
I dont know that it would have been erotic love, but I dont know that itwouldnthave been.
We just didnt get to explore it fully.
In that first season, it was important for him to go through all that.
He needed to get past his fathers approval and accept himself wholeheartedly.
But the presumption of suicide in a gay character is something that has rightfully been dinged as a trope.
The rest didnt matter.
I still feel that way.
Dylan Baker was playing the complicated brother-in-law.
Silas had a spiritual adviser, played by Eamonn Walker.
We had a sequence where Death appears to Silas in the form of a woman haunting him.
Barrett:You should have seen the atmosphere.
I would come in and go, What the heck are you guys talking about?
Laughter would break out in the hallways of the New York library.
Jason Antoon (Boyden):We were important characters, but we were the comic relief.
There were so many fun nights.
Antoon:Every time we ran into Ian McShane on set, hes the most jolly.
Hes like, I gotta send you this YouTube.
This was when YouTube links were the viral videos.
We were sending them to each other.
He was talking about them all the time on set.Leprechaun video that is the one he sent me.
I hadnt evenseenhis dressing room.
I was like,What?
Hes going to rip me apart!He was in his robe, changing.
We shot the scene.
He cracked bring up the food, and they went through a quart of schmaltz herring togetherduring the rehearsal.
We realized,Oh, he was thinking about lunch!
He just wanted some great food with it!
McShane: Coxy was an old friend of mine Brian.
We had that wonderful scene together.
Zabars whitefish, I seem to remember, played a large part.
Cox:There was a whitefish salad thats right.
It was so bizarre.
But that whole show was really bizarre.
Thompson:With somebody like Ian, you have to come ready to work.
Green:I always knew the second season clearer than the first.
It was going to be a little bit likeA Tale of Two Cities: Silass degradation and Davids ascension.
I was desperate to tell the story of Silas slowly going insane.
And there was a long, long game plan for it.
Although some seemed intrigued, most struggled to understand the premise of the series, foreshadowing a later challenge.
Are you going to deal with that at all?
Are they going to sit down and watch TV?
Are they going to have books to read?
Any of the things available to us are available in the world the show takes place in.
McShane:I mean, theres no apocalyptic voice coming on, saying, Its the year 2025.
The world is in disarray.
We dont wear overalls or some kind of strange one-pieces.
Unnamed TV critic:So theres a United States, theres a China, theres a Russia.
Its this world its just not a country we know?
Green:Not necessarily, no.
Lawrence:Its a familiar world.
Unnamed TV critic:Okay, now youre not making any sense at all.
McShane:Did you just say yourenot making any sense, or were not making any sense?
Green:No, he said werenot.
McShane:Were not making any sense?
Is that what dramas about?
Isnt drama excuse me for your ignorant remark.
Isnt drama were not making any sense?
What the hell kind of a question.
You ask a question you want an answer or not?
The world drama is built on biblical, the greatest novel written by 50 people ever.
If you cant get a good story from that, you cant.
What do you expect it all spelled out for you now?
That you should know what kind of pop culture were going to refer to?
Britney Spearss new child?
Unnamed TV critic:No, no, no.
So I naturally followed up by making sure I understood, in saying that it is this world?
And then no its not necessarily this world.
McShane:It is this world, yes.
Its what he said.
He never said
Lawrence:The difference is the difference is that you dont have Starbucks.
You have a coffee, but its not Starbucks.
You dont have a BlackBerry, but theres phones and cell phones.
Theres no Britney Spears, but people sing songs.
Thompson:But just to answer his question: Theres not necessarily China.
Pope:It was the craziest thing.
The headline that ran later wasIan McShane ofKingsSpars With Ignorant TV critic.
Critical reaction was mixed, with some critics praising the series ambition and others expressing uncertainty about its coherence.
I felt like we had to weave them into this world.
So thered been this very long-planned, tiered thing.
And I remembered they executed step one and then I got fired.
No more steps were executed.
It was just sort of this mysterious campaign popping up all over New York.
But they were considered viral because you didnt know what it was an ad for.
They just didnt air it.
We were baffled and embarrassed and we called and said, What happened?
Pope:One of the heartbreaks of me getting fired was that I was so devastated for the show.
I had the relationships to get the difficult shows through.
Its so sad I felt so bad.
The market had crashed.
The champion was not there.
We dont want that anymore unless its a huge hit.
We were just too artsy and too odd.
It got a little away from itself.
You could see she didnt really even want to meet with us.
She gave us about three and a half minutes.
She totally did not get the show.
We had to be adopted by this group that did not get it at all.
Maybe I saw three episodes ofKings.
And then I saw three episodes ofSouthland, which was developed by Ann Biderman and John Wells.
The decision had nothing to do with the people involved.
I had to make what I thought was a commercial decision.
There was a matching one of Ian McShane.
It was a clean concept but more to the point.
It was going to tell people that a show existed and that it would be on television.
They kept telling us they were going to go up and then they never went up.
The punch line is that the posters were used about a year or two later for another show.
They used the basic shape and design and art of the poster for a show calledThe Cape.
I remember driving down La Brea and seeing it.
I had to stop the car and laugh.
Lets just use it two years later!
We always said, There are a thousand ways to market this right.
Theres one way to market it badly and say, This is an alternate America.
What if America had a king?
So we all agree were never going to do that, right?
Its cancellation was all but guaranteed.
Stan:When we got moved to Sunday, there was a bit of aHmmm, okay.
Annamaria Sofillas,former intern:I was there when they got the call.
We saw Michael get on the phone and leave.
He came back in and said, Theyre changing the slot.
He didnt look sad; he was still trying to hold it together.
But you could tell.
I think he said, Theyre moving us to Sunday.
We all knew what that meant.
Bromstad:Kingswas serialized.
It was a much bigger risk in that time slot.
What I didnt realize was that Ann Biderman also hadthe intention to serializeSouthland.
Barrett:It felt like a specific sabotage.
You couldnt see where it was advertised, and you couldnt find it.
And there was so much money put into it.
Pope:It was so sad.
When you cut to a commercial for McDonalds, you were completely taken out.
It was not a internet show.
It was like if you were watchingGame of Thronesand you cut to a commercial for Pepto-Bismol.
These worlds dont exist together.
Thats my theory: It was a cable show shoehorned into a connection show.
Great show, wrong place, wrong time.
Because what else are you gonna say?
Cox:It was a bit of a blow, actually.
I was desperate to do the show.
I think nowadays, you know, Netflix or one of those would have picked it up.
It would have been protected, and it would have got dealt with properly.
But that was the bad old days of NBC.
Lawrence:Weirdly, my first movie andKingsare probably the things I hear about the most.
Its like, Wow.
Im amazed that were not still running, actually, because that kept up for a long time.
So you cant blame a web connection for turning over and changing its interests.
Ive become less cynical about web link television these days, actually.
It was in that weird transitioning period where they were doing radically stupid things to incredible losses.
Bromstad:You know what?
Heres the thing: I dont know how anything worked on web connection.
And by the way, at that time, it wasnt working.
The ratings for every show were so, so muchlowerthan when I started.
So many of the questions I got that were like, What is it, though?
What do they mean by that?so many of those wouldnt even be a second thought now.
It was a really, really different content landscape at that point.
People are always saying, Oh, do something different!
That attitude was pervasive through all of TV.
In the face of online grid TV, youre trying to create a little art every week.
Nothing wrong in that.
