‘Citadel’ Franchise Has a Global Writers’ Room That Meets Bi-Weekly, EP David Weil Reveals
As Prime Video gears up for the launch of “Citadel” on Friday, planning for the franchise has not slowed down as a global writers’ room for convenes bi-weekly to discuss the “collision” points among the action franchise’s spinoffs.
“There’s this unique sort of structure where every week or every other week, I get together with the creators [and] showrunners of those series,” EP David Weil told TheWrap at the Los Angeles “Citadel” premiere. “We have this global writers’ room that we’re calling it, where we talk about story, we talk about the different characters, their histories, their past, their futures and we see where the collisions can happen amongst our stories.”
Planned as a global franchise with different spinoffs in different languages, the Italian series recently wrapping production while the Indian series is still shooting, according to Weil. Weil also hinted at Easter eggs within “Citadel” that positioned the original series for additional spinoffs.
“I’ve never heard of something like that before,” Weil continued. “I’ve certainly never been a part of that before; it’s been very humbling to be one sort of member of this larger collective of storytellers and I think it will lead to very authentic global stories.”
Billed as a “large-scope, multi-layered international event series,” The Hollywood Reporter reported the action series was on track to become the second most expensive show ever made with a budget nearing $465 million.
While Weil pushed back on the report that “Citadel” had the second largest in TV history, pointing to Marvel series and HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” he admitted that the production had a “very big budget for the show” and “a lot of support” from Prime Video, which was necessarily for the sprawling series.
“For a series like this with incredible action that you often see in films, you need a healthy budget, and you need a lot of support,” Weil said.
The series follows former Citadel agents Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Chopra Jonas) as they attempt to rebuild the spy agency with the help of agent lead Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci).
The first two episodes of “Citadel” premiere Friday, April 28, on Prime Video, with successive episodes releasing Fridays through May 26.
