

None were spectacularly funny, none were integral to any of it.Īctually, there was one. I think the initial script had like six “sh*ts” and three “f*cks” in it. There was nothing in the show-save for Jack’s ass-that begged for the show to be on cable. Her main story involved a broken marriage and a cute little son.ĭid you consider making the show for cable or streaming? Why was the decision made to go with a broadcast series?Īt one point early on I did, but there didn’t seem to be a need to. One major character was another sister who lived in London and had developed one of those partial English accents Americans get when they live there a long time – another misdirect to them all being related in the end. As soon as that locked in, I knew I was going to do it.Ĭan you reveal the gender and any other details about the sextuplets from the original 36 script who didn’t make the cut to TV? And you could see how the family grows and informs itself over years and different time periods. The ending was just a beginning, and the thing I liked most about the script-the characters-they could keep evolving over many, many stories. And suddenly I was excited to write it again, not just because it could be shorter and was almost done-though that was enticing too-but because suddenly I didn’t need an ending.
GLAAVANT LETS GET LYRICAL SERIES
And one day I just decided to open it back up, lose some characters, and try thinking of it as a TV series instead of a film. I kept thinking up characters that reminded me of characters from that old screenplay, but I didn’t like the new ideas/characters as much as I did those older characters. I’d had a TV series cancelled in heartbreaking fashion as per usual, and I’d started contemplating what I might do next. How and when did the idea come about to turn it into a series? So I put it away and said, “Well, shit, that was 6 months wasted.” I struggled to find the point of the ending, or even to find “the ending”. I loved the characters, I loved the idea of it, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around it as a film. One of the only times in my life I wrote something and just put it away. Halfway through I thought, Huh, maybe one story is the parents of all the others. And I thought, I’m going to write something about all these people, all exactly the same age and born on the same day.

Some had experienced great loss-of parents, of friends-others hadn’t even lost a grandparent.

Some were satisfied in their careers, others less so. I had friends who were married, some single.

I was in my late 30s at the time-about 38-and I was struck by how wildly different the lives of my peers could be, even though we were all the same age. I wanted to sit down and write something about people people I knew. There wasn’t really a ton of inspiration. What was the original inspiration for it? Brown), and lifts the curtain a bit on Season 2, Jack’s death reveal and the kind of ending he is planning for the show. He shares details about one of the original six siblings that didn’t make the cut to The Big Three, discloses the biggest change he had to make when the series went to broadcast instead of cable/streaming (it involves the character played by Sterling K. In an interview with Deadline, Fogelman talks about the humble start to This is Us-as an unfinished feature script about sextuplets titled 36-and its transformation into a hugely popular TV series. It went on to give Fogelman a giant hit, TV’s version of a feature blockbuster.īut before The Big Three, there were The Big Six. The ensemble family drama, which featured no major stars and no high-concept gimmicks, made an immediate connection with fans, with its trailer amassing tens of millions of views in a matter of days. While Pitch was another cult hit, This is Us was an instant breakout. He switched studios, moving from ABC Studios/Disney, where he had been based for years, for a deal at 20 th Century Fox TV.įogelman also switched genres, venturing into hour-long drama with This is Us and Pitch, both of which went to series and earned strong reviews. But after Galavant came to a premature end in May 2016, Fogelman made a big change. In TV, he had been known for quirky short-lived half-hour comedy series with cult followings, including The Neighbors and Galavant on ABC. In features, Dan Fogelman has written big several hits, including the blockbuster Cars franchise.
