Exclusive: Creator Robert Kirkman On Adapting And Bringing ‘Invincible’ To Life For Amazon Prime
Now playing on Amazon Prime is Robert Kirkman’s (The Walking Dead) upcoming, hour-long animated series Invincible, as part of Skybound Xpo: Creatorfest. The eight-episode, hour-long animated series will premiere globallyon Amazon Prime Video in over 240 countries and territories March 26
Invincible is an hour-long, adult animated superhero show that revolves around seventeen-year-old Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), who’s just like every other guy his age — except that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). But as Mark develops powers of his own, he discovers that his father’s legacy may not be as heroic as it seems.
The series’ all-star ensemble voice cast also includes Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Seth Rogen (The Lion King), Gillian Jacobs (Love), Andrew Rannells (Black Monday), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), Mark Hamill (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Walton Goggins (Tomb Raider), Jason Mantzoukas (John Wick 3: Parabellum), Mae Whitman (Good Girls) and Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley).
It will also feature Mahershala Ali as Titan, Clancy Brown as Damien Darkblood, Jeffrey Donovan as Machine Head, Ezra Miller as D.A. Sinclair, Djimon Hounsou as Martian Emperor, Jonathan Groff as Rick Sheridan, Jon Hamm as Steve, Zachary Quinto as Robot, Nicole Byer as Vanessa & Fiona and Khary Payton as Black Samson along with Chad Coleman as Martian Man, Sonequa Martin-Green as Green Ghost, Michael Cudlitz as Red Rush, Lauren Cohan as War Woman, Lennie James as Darkwing and Ross Marquand actually taking two roles on the show as The Immortal and Aquarius.
For Kirkman, who’s best known for co-creating The Walking Dead, Outcast and Fear the Walking Dead, here’s come another series, but one is that also near and dear and based on his long running comic book. Plus, he’s been given the latitude to go where no other adult animated series has gone before.
When did you know that it was really happening, after the pilot was order and then the series picked up?
Robert Kirkman: Well, it was a number of years ago. We had gotten a deal with an Amazon to produce new shows for them. We had also done a little bit of animation with Catherine Winder at Skybound North. We had done the Super Dinosaur cartoon. We sat down with Amazon to talk about what we wanted to do and what we're most excited about. We thought, "Well, now is the time to enter into some more animation and finally bring Invincible to life." They were very excited about the prospect of my second longest running comic book series finally being adapted. They definitely saw the potential for animation and were very excited about that aspect of it. Seeing Amazon's energy and their willingness to push boundaries and do some cool things, we were like, “It'd be cool if this was an hour long cable drama, but just animated.” They were like, “Cool.” This is a really mature series that has a lot of action or a lot of violence. And violence is very essential to the drama. It's a very mature superhero world. They're like, “Yeah, cool, totally.” We told them, "We got the boys in development. We know what we're doing.” They were totally on board with that. Yeah, I think that was the point where it was like, “Oh, man, this is really going to happen. This is this is really exciting." Once we started getting characters designed, and getting scripts written and things like that, we were off to the races.
In regards to the violence, did you have to tone it done for TV?
Robert Kirkman: Does it seem like we toned it down at all? I can't imagine what it would have been if we'd actually toned it down and ended up with that. I was always amazed at the level of freedom that Amazon Prime had given us. I expected to be tapped on the shoulder in a moment when the animation started coming back to be told, "Yeah, no, that's not gonna fly. You got to tone this down a little bit. What are you doing, you lunatic!", but instead, they were all on board. And that's because they recognize that this is a very heightened world. In order to show superheroes accurately, and in order to break ground, and really shine a light on the dire consequences of having people in this powerful in the world, you have to show them the ugly side of it.
If you haven't seen just how ugly and how brutal and how terrifying these things can get, the drama has no punch. Once you've seen what these characters are capable of, just them showing up in scenes can be terrifying. There's a tension to those things that exist that wouldn't be there if we were shying away from this or toning anything down. It's an absolutely essential element to our storytelling, and I couldn't be happier that we've been given the latitude to explore the different areas.
This is not the typical half hour animated show one normally sees on TV. This is a full hour. How much of a challenge was it for you and your writing team as far as what to put in for the first season and stretching it out with the hope that you're going to come back for a second season?
Robert Kirkman: It wasn't really about stretching it out. It was having the space to really dig in and explore the characters. I think that if you compare this to the comic books, the comic books have to be very efficient. Because the action sequences take up so much space, and talking sequences take up so much space, you have to truncate those things so that they don't fill an entire issue. When you're sitting down to do an hour long animated series, especially with the cast that we have, you want to take the time to explore these characters to give them those emotional sequences; to give them those scenes that show their personality; that show their wants and desire so that you have an intimate familiarity, and that's moving forward so that you're that much more invested in them. When it came time to adapt things, we knew that we wanted to tell a certain story that we wanted to tell in the first season. We knew that it would take up certain amount of minutes here and there to tell that story properly. But when it really got down to it, it was a wealth of space that we had to really get to the dramatic core of all these characters and put them in place so that the big, emotional, dramatic sequences that were adapted from the comics would have as much emotional punch as we wanted.
When it came to the characters, outside of Mark and his family, how much went into who gets more or less per episode for the rest of the characters?
Robert Kirkman: I guess that was organically developed. As we broke the stories, we worked very closely with Simon Racioppa, our head writer. I was in the writers room with our writing team, just trying to figure things out. You have to show the ground level characters in order to have the scope and scale that we eventually go to, have weight have impact. You need those Williams and you need those Ambers, and you need the Debbie Grayson's to show you that this is a very real, very human world that these characters inhabit. These characters, the ones that don't have powers, are very much at the mercy of what could happen to them. There's a big dramatic punch that comes from that. So I think that was a little bit of effort that to put into that striking that balance. How much is Mark out of costume? How much are we exploring his everyday mundane life? How does that reflect to his entering into the superhero world? Iif you don't take the time to establish who Mark is without powers, you don't see how much his life changes. Once he gets power, it's all important.
Can you break down putting together the main cast?
Robert Kirkman: We work very closely with a casting director Linda Lamontagne to come up with the absolute best cast possible and we somehow succeeded. I think it started with Steven Yuen, I had a history with him and I knew that he would be perfect as Mark, I knew that he could encompass all the different evolutions that character would have over the course of the series. Then we were off to the races once we had him on board. We knew we had to have a very strong core cast of Mark and Nolan and Debbie. J.K. Simmons was the absolute top choice for Omni-Man. He was someone who can play nine different characters within the same character; and that's something that's very essential to the on demand character. We needed someone in Sandra Oh who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Invincible and Omni-Man and carry the scenes and leave the scenes. She had to go toe to toe with super powered beings and hold her own emotionally and have very interesting verbal conflicts and she had to be able to portray a strength that is almost uncanny. That's something that Sandro does, amazingly.
The rest of the cast is just the who's who of the absolute perfect people for these roles. Anyone who's a huge fan of Invincible and has been reading this comic for its15 year run. When you hear these names, it's like, “Oh, yeah, Gilliam Jacobs is the perfect Atom Eve. Seth Rogen is the perfect Allen the Alien and Walton Goggins is the perfect Cecil Steadman." The list goes on. Andrew Rannells' William is a spectacular key piece of the series. There's so many great voice actors that are also in the mix. It's just an embarrassment of riches. I think it's the greatest cast that any show has ever had.
Are we getting any of the storylines from the comics to the screen?
Robert Kirkman: Oh, absolutely. We’re getting almost all of the storylines from the comics to the screen, eventually. The comic books is our roadmap. There are very key moments that comic book fans are going to be looking for, and they're going to get those moments; but at the same time, we're adapting things. We’re rearranging things. We're going to keep even the most die hard comic book fan guessing as to what will happen next. But you know, they'll eventually get to see those great moments that they’re hoping and praying will make it onto the screen. So yeah, we're definitely going to be doing right by the fans and I couldn't be more thrilled about that.
Outside of Mark, who's your other favorite character in a series that we should be paying attention to besides the parents?
Robert Kirkman: There's an Allen the Alien and Damien Darkblood. I think that Atom Eve is going to be a very big fan favorite. She’s a huge fan favorite from the comics and Gillian (Jacobs) just portrays her in such a great way that people are going to love her.
With all these projects that you are working on, how do you stay humble and normal?
Robert Kirkman: When I'm not working on these projects, I'm taking out the trash. I'm looking like an idiot in front of my wife. There's a lot of things that keep me humble. Also, I have a very blue collar sensibility. I feel like I might as well be punching a clock at the widget factory when I'm making this stuff. I'm doing my best to do a good job. Any sense of what I do being important is smoke and mirrors. I'm just trying to entertain people and have fun doing it.