![]() We kept the kids who I thought were pretty good. So we ended up re-shooting about 3/4 of the pilot and re-casting a good deal of it. It was a different kind of show, I think. He wasn”t connected to the people around him. The actors were fine in the original pilot, but the main character was more of a loner. So Stacy (Keach) was not in the original pilot. And we re-shot the pilot, re-cast pretty much all the recurring adults except for Holt. And by that time I had done probably 15 drafts on the pilot. So from fall of 2009, we didn’t reshoot until March of 2010. The teaser, where we flashed back 5 years, that was a new addition. So I kept what I could and added some things. No one ever wants to do a lot of pilot re-shooting. So I started to rework the pilot, handed that it, handed in episode 2 and Landgraf at that point kind of doubled-down and said, “Okay.” By August of 2009, Justin left the show and (FX president) John Landgraf, “I’ll give you (some time), but the clock is ticking on this thing.” But by then they”d green-lit “Terriers.” And he said, “If you want to take another pass at the pilot and get me an episode 2, I”ll take a look at it,” but at that point it was a long shot. The original idea was a guy named Ross Fineman who”s one of the EP”s. It was a brief attempt at collaborating with Justin Zackham who wrote the original pilot. So they tried some editing and then they brought me in, in late July of 2009. FX thought this is a great lead character and a great actor but there were problems. It was shot in 2009 and whatever problems there were with the pilot, Holt was undeniable I think in the lead. So this was supposed to precede “Justified,” even. They shot the original pilot in April of 2009. I”ll give you more back-story than you need. I”d like to start with what the status of this all was when you came in and what your take on it was when you got attached to the project. ![]() (I even deleted a few specific references made by one or both of us, while leaving in the larger point that brought us there.) I’ve seen the first five episodes of the season – which deal with Lights’ increasing problems in retirement and his desire to get back in the ring despite the objections of wife Theresa (Catherine McCormack) – and I feel comfortable that none of what we discuss is any kind of significant spoiler. ![]() As with a lot of these showrunner interviews – and just like the one I did with Leight at the end of his “In Treatment” stint – the answers are long but, I hope, interesting. I talked with Leight last week about the changes he made when he took over, his own history with boxing, what he learned from the coterie of ex-fighters who came in to meet the writing staff, dealing with the expectations of fight movie fans, relocating the series to Tony Soprano country, and more. ![]() (Back in the summer, he appeared at a press tour session alongside his hulking leading men – Holt McCallany as retired heavyweight champ Patrick “Lights” Leary, Pablo Schreiber as his manager brother Johnny and Stacy Keach as their father – and thought, “One of these is not like the other.”) But he had a childhood passion for the sport, and when FX felt the original version of the “Lights Out” pilot was having creative problems, they brought in Leight to get it back on track, then left him in charge when they picked up the series. (You can read my review here.)Ī Tony-winning playwright (for “Side Man,” a play about his jazz musician father), a showrunner for several seasons of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” and the showrunner on the second season of HBO’s psychiatry drama “In Treatment,” Leight is a small, cerebral guy. Warren Leight is not necessarily the first writer you’d think of to run a boxing drama, but he’s the man in charge of FX’s excellent new series “Lights Out,” which debuts Tuesday at 10 p.m. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |