The new supernatural crime drama to come to our screens is Revival. It arrives on Thursday, June 12, and we got to chat to various cast members and the showrunners of the new series. Luke Boyce and Aaron B. Koontz have brought this new series to life, staying as faithful to the comics as possible while also bringing their own flare and creating something that works for TV.
There are plenty of twists and turns throughout the new series. This is one of those shows that brings an excellent mixture of family drama, supernatural horror, and a murder mystery twist that leaves you guessing until the end.
The great thing, though, is that it’s made by fans of the comics. Boyce was a fan long before he considered turning it into a TV series, and that shows in the adaptation.
Luke Boyce and Aaron B. Koontz discuss the development of Revival and tease what’s to come
Precinct TV: What made you realize that this was the next comic series that had to be developed?
Aaron B. Koontz: Luke had known Tim and Mike [Seeley & Norton, Revival comic creators] for a while and they are friends. They were trying to get this going, as it was a comic that he was a fan of. But speaking from my side, I had not read the comic book. Luke sent it to me, and I read the first issue and I was like ‘oh my goodness. First off, this is a pilot.’
It just feels like a pilot. It jumps off the page, such interesting characters, such an interesting setting. It’s so fun. It’s Fargo-esque, but then, you’ve got this world with this murder mystery happening at the same time, and the hook is that it’s a murder mystery where they’re still alive, and they’re trying to solve their own murder. I’m like, ‘Okay, what is happening here?’
Then you get all kinds of stuff that’s happening, that are coming in later in the horror elements. It’s a really, really fun show, and I think that was a key for us the whole time. This could be fun, and it could be twisting at times. It could be melodramatic at times in a great way, and then it could be a thriller. It could be sci-fi, so just totally to have all of that to play with and that kind of canvas to work from, I think, was such a wonderful place that starts with the comic, and we were immediately hooked.
PTV: So, Luke, you read the comics first?
Luke Boyce: Yeah, I was a huge fan of the comics long before I met Tim. It comes from, I think, the golden age of Image Comics where they had Saga, The Wicked + the Divine, just a lot of great ones, but Revival stood out because it was this very real, it’s this Midwestern small town — Aaron and I both come from Midwestern small towns, so we understand that world a lot. Then adding that horror, supernatural element, it just immediately appealed to me.
As you know, in our space, we work in this indie horror space, so being able to adapt that was a dream come true. I’ve been a huge fan of the comics for years.
PTV: I’m guessing it was important to remain loyal to the story then.
LB: Yeah! I’ll say that initially the goal is always to be as faithful as you can, but when you’re adapting anything, you have to sort of build onto that thing. And one of the great things about this, I came from this world of really being just immersed in the comic for many years, and when Aarron came on, I sent him the comics, he was coming from a fresh perspective, so that was fun.
It was fun to see what we could push and pull in being faithful and where it could really go. A lot of credit goes to Aaron for being able to say ‘yeah, this is interesting. I think this is sort of the hidden meaning here, and let’s see how we can sort of maybe zag where the comics zig a little bit.’
ABK: We did a lot of playing around with it, but there’s still the spirit of the comic, like the big moments in the comic, we make sure are there and we build around those moments. We find a way to construct the journey to get there. We’re trying to set up an expectation of where they think it’s going to go if they know the comic, and then it’s like ‘o wait, we got there, but not in the way I saw it.’ We want to keep them surprised, which I think it is a really fun thing when you love the original IP.
Tim and Mike have loved it as well. They were like ‘Oh, I wish we would have done the same thing. That was such a great idea.’ So that was cool.
PTV: One of the topics of the whole series is segregation, and it’s such an important topic to discuss right now. Was that important for you to keep that message in there with the horror and the crime?
ABK: 100%. I mainly live in Texas, so I see so much of this. Once we started to see the parallels to the comics that came out in 2012, we knew this was important. One of the themes of the story, and especially in our show, is talking about how hate is learned and what it’s like to feel unloved, unwanted in your own town, in your own place. That people, this association that you have that someone feels different from you, and how crass that can be and the lack of empathy that can come through.
So, we try to find characters that can show those perspectives and the characters that can contrast those perspectives, so you can feel the push and pull, while, Luke and I would text each other and go, ‘It’s really happening. This thing in this episode really happened.’ It’s very chilling, so it was very important for us to talk about that and show our version of ICE raids that might happen later in the show, but also without being preachy. Just maybe we can give you a different perspective on this and you think about it a little differently. That’s really the hope, but it was vital to have that.
LB: Yeah, it was interesting to sort of take something where you as a society, I think it’s sometimes too easy for people to other people, and I think our story is about how suddenly you can become an ‘other,’ and what that means and how we deal with that collectively. I think that’s part of what makes this story so unique and special.
Revival premieres on Thursday, June 12 at 10/9c on Syfy and streams on Peacock the following week.
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