Earlier this month Patently Apple posted a report titled "Defending Jacob is Shaping Up to be a Hit for Apple TV+ according to Opening Weekend Data now available." Now two interviews of the screenwriter behind the series Mark Bomback  have surfaced discussing how the series came to being and how it was to work with Apple. Our report includes a long video interview with Mark Bomback.

The first interview source was Deadline. They note in their report that Mark Bomback is a screenwriter who has been one of the go-to people in Tinseltown. He's worked on some of the best-known franchises in recent years including The Mummy, a series of Planet of the Apes movies, Fifty Shades of grey and many more.

Now he's added television content to his résumé as creator, executive producer and showrunner for the new Apple TV+  limited series Defending Jacob, an eight-episode drama he adapted from the novel by William Landay.

Deadline's Pete Hammond recently interviewed Bomback who talked about the challenges and pluses of working in a streaming environment for a project like 'Defending Jacob.' He told Hammond that the original idea was to make Defending Jacob as a motion picture,  but that as he got more into it the limited series format seemed ideal to flesh out the story of a assistant DA, played by Chris Evans, whose young son becomes a main suspect in the murder of a student at this school.

In the second interview in the video below we learn that it was originally a Warner Bros. Picture movie project which then switched to a 'Paramount' and 'Anonymous Content' owned project.

Bomback, via video from his home in upstate New York, talked to Deadline about the trick of adapting books and just how involved he gets with the original authors, as well as his career trajectory in getting into the business and becoming a successful screenwriter. For more on this read the full Deadline report.

Below is a different and earlier April interview with Mark Bomback below by DP/30. We start the video below as the the subject turned from his past films to the Defending Jacob project with executives over at Apple TV+.  

In the interview Bomback said that Apple gave him a lot of freedom and any notes sent his way were constructive and not demanding in nature like other studios were known for. He also delved into working on one scene of the parents arguing that took an entire day to film and he really enjoyed that kind of opportunity that you wouldn't get in making a film.

While Bomback hints that he would be interested in future projects with Apple, he stated that it would have to be a project that he really believed in as he didn't want to just be a "showrunner for hire." He noted that the Defending Jacob project from start to finish took 3 years of his life and so he was likely to do some film work next before thinking of another series. That would almost suggest that Defending Jacob is likely not going to be a serial story with multiple seasons. I also rather doubt that the star of the show Chris Evans has interest in that prospect either.

Archive:Apple TV News