Jessica Rothe as Samantha in Utopia season 1. I think as I was pitching I called it Marathon Man meets The Goonies!” I wanted it to be rich, really textured, one of those places where you walk into certain spaces, and you feel like you can smell it a little bit. "I really was taking my cues from those conspiracy thrillers, like All the President’s Men and The Parallax View, where they almost feel like newsreels sometimes. We’re ripe for misinformation and spin and conspiracy. We’re at a place where there’s no truth, there is no right-side up, wrong-side down.
“Much more of the intention was about where we‘re at now. “I really as any sort of medical procedural, or this is what a pandemic would look like,” Flynn admits.
It may be hard to believe in a time when Covid-19 and its implications dominate approximately 91.7 per cent of conversations on the planet (estimated), but Utopia isn’t primarily a show about pandemics. “He would say at every turn, ‘Why remake something if you're not going to remake it?’ which gave me so much breathing room and freedom that I really appreciated.” “Dennis was much more gracious about me messing around in his world than I would have been had anyone started playing in any of mine!” laughs Flynn. Flynn also admits that she only “ended up using two pieces of dialogue” from Kelly’s scripts. She’s also introduced several new characters, from Wilson’s Michael Stearns – a scientist whose career is on a downward curve when he uncovers the conspiracy – to John Cusack as Dr Kevin Christie, a biotech billionaire who’s putting on a very public show of making the world a better place. While many of the central gang have the same names, their personalities have been subtly tweaked. Shifting the action from Britain to Chicago isn’t the only change Flynn has made to the source material. (Image credit: Elizabeth Morris/Amazon Prime Video) John Cusack as Dr Kevin Christie in Utopia season 1. "My background is media, I was a journalist for 10 years, and I like that idea of being able to play with… We're hitting the age now where it’s like whoever has the best ability to manipulate and spin the truth is the entity that's going to win.” I mean, that's what I've written my whole career! And I just love the idea that everyone’s got a secret, everyone's got a spin. “I love the idea that this is a world of conspiracy, and you don't know who you can trust. “I just think Dennis is a world class world builder,” Flynn explains. She’s been working on a US version of Utopia for years – a collaboration with The Social Network/Gone Girl director David Fincher nearly got off the ground at HBO in 2014 – and the idea never went away. It’s a premise that hooked Flynn instantly. It also attracts a pair of assassins on a mission to wipe out anyone who’s laid eyes on the prophetic comic book. When a manuscript of Utopia – whose existence is supposed to be closely guarded secret – goes up for auction, it sparks a frenzy of activity. Like the Dennis Kelly-scripted original, Utopia 2.0 centres on a disparate mix of geeky idealists, conspiracy theorists and sceptics brought together by the eponymous graphic novel.
Rainn Wilson as Dr Michael Stearns in Utopia season 1.
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