At
the FX panel of the TCA Press Tour, FX Networks and Fx Productions CEO, John
Landgraf talked about what viewers can expect from the Fargo tv series, Joel
and Ethan Coen's involvement in the project and the upcoming Guillermo del Toro
series The Strain.
Question:
With Fargo, is Billy Bob
Thornton playing the William H. Macy character from the movie, and is there a
female sheriff character?
JOHN
LANDGRAF: There is no William H. Macy character. There are no characters in the
limited series Fargo that are derived from the
characters in the film Fargo.
It’s hard to describe how remarkably true to the film the show is. When Joel
and Ethan Coen actually saw the script, they said, “Well, we don’t really know
how to give notes, so can we rewrite it?” And we were like, “Well, yeah, sure.
We’d be happy to have you.” And then, they sent back half a dozen pages with
just a few dialogue suggestions. They really thought Noah Hawley had nailed the
tone of the show. There is a female cop, but she’s not a sheriff. She’s a young
deputy. She’s in her early 20s, and so she’s not really the character from Fargo. All I can tell you is
that I think people are just going to be really entranced with that show. I
think it’s going to be extraordinary. He’s just managed, somehow, to invent a
new version of Fargo that is really its own thing, but
also is true to the spirit of the original.
So,
will there not be a second season of Fargo?
LANDGRAF:
The story of Fargo ends at the end at the tenth
episode of Fargo. Those
characters won’t continue. Just like American
Horror Story, the characters don’t continue from one season to the next.
Then,
further seasons are possible?
LANDGRAF:
I guess that’s conceivable. It would have to be a whole new story, in the tone
and vernacular of Fargo,
but not those characters because it’s a fully satisfying, closed-ended story. I
really am excited about the innovation of American
Horror Story. It’s an exciting forum. I don’t know if Fargo will go down that path. If it’s as
good as I think is, then it would be exciting for me, if it went down that path.
Do
you have any interest in exploring different periods of time with your shows,
or do you want to stay in the here and now?
LANDGRAF:
We’ve actually bought quite a number of historical pieces. We are doing a piece
on the abolitionists, Harper’s Ferry and the abolitionist John Brown with Paul
Giamatti. If you think about how broadcast mini-series approach historical
events, there is a hagiography. There has been a soft, very glossy idea about
history. And one of the things I like about Game
of Thrones, for example, is just the grit and the authenticity. We also
have a piece about the Mayflower, but it’s just a very different, very gritty,
very character-driven version of why those people were on that boat and what
the experience was like for them, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and
also the Native Americans and what the state of Native American society was at
that time.
How
graphic will The Strain be?
LANDGRAF:
It’s pretty graphic. It’s a horror show. I think you can expect content
commensurate with The Walking
Dead or American Horror Story.
With
a trilogy of books completing that story, will you continue the series beyond
that?
LANDGRAF:
No. It’s a trilogy, and the trilogy ends the story. It’s a truly epic story.
And when Guillermo [del Toro] came in to sell it, one of the things they made
clear is that they wanted to tell the story of the books. That story would be
told over three, four or five seasons. They have work to do, in terms of
figuring out how they are going to resituate that story, in an episodic
television series, but it will be somewhere between 39 and 65 episodes. No less
and no more, and I’m really excited about that.
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