An interview with executive producer, Jason Rothenberg, for The 100

24 June 2014

The following feature is available free for reproduction in full or in part.

How would you describe the genesis of the concept for The 100?

The show is based on a book. Last year, I was looking for a pilot to write and I had a meeting with the publisher. They told me about this idea and it instantly blew my mind. I think I can honestly say it’s an amazing idea because it wasn’t my idea and I’m not tooting my own horn here – but it instantly touched all of the hot creative issues that I was looking for.

What creative issues were you looking for?

I wanted to do a show with a Lord of the Flies theme – and that was there in this story. Battlestar Galactica is one of my favourite shows of all time. Well, this is like Battlestar Galactica in space. Lost is also one of my favourite shows of all time – and this is like Lost on the ground. It was a very easy decision for me to take on this project.

What are the main themes on the show in the first season?

This season, a lot of the storytelling on the ground in particular is about creating a society. The 100 need to create a society because of various things that they discover down there - threats to kill them and multiple surprises that I shouldn’t get into right now. And so they build walls and create this thing that they will learn to love, whether or not it’s worth fighting for or dying for.

What else will you address in the first season?

We also get into the question of crime and punishment on Earth. What do you when someone commits a crime? Is there punishment? These are kids that are criminals, but now they have to suddenly deal with the idea, ‘Are we going to kill one of our own for doing something bad?’ These are kids who grew up under a regime where you got killed for a crime if you were over 18 years old, so we really get to see that in the show. They’ve been trained a certain way their whole lives and they’ve been rebelling against it – but then they get down to Earth and they realise that maybe mum and dad weren’t so crazy after all.

What issues will they be dealing with on the Ark?

What they are dealing with up there is life and death. For instance, the Kane character [played by Ian Cusick] is obviously a villain – but he’s right in his mind. In his mind, this ship is going to die, which means everybody in the human race will die; the human race will be over unless he does something. I talk about Kane as if he was Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. We need him to make hard decisions – and he will make those hard decisions this year. It’s very dark. That’s what we’re going to be doing up there.

Why do you think the show will resonate with audiences?

There are going to be some really intense stories and we’re going to get to play this world as if it’s real. These kids are turned loose on the ground without parents, teachers and authorities, so what the hell will they do? We get to see that happen. It’s almost wish fulfillment until they realise it’s a nightmare more than a dream.

Where did you shoot the show?

Vancouver. The whole show is filmed in Vancouver. It’s great there.

How tough is it to balance the script evenly between the two worlds: the Ark and Earth?

To be truthful, nothing about writing this script was tough. It was a very easy write and it was all there from the very beginning. As I mentioned, it’s based on a book and as soon as I heard about the idea, I knew it was going to be amazing.

Does that mean you’ll closely follow the story of the book?

To be honest, we don’t follow much of the story at all – but we used the main ideas and themes. It’s a very good book, but the story is set 1500 years in the future. There are lots of large, weird mutant people on the ground, so it’s much more sci-fi than our show. My approach to the story was to be more grounded, so that everything was a bit more believable. We set the show 100 years in the future to make it more believable, too. We have the book for inspiration, but we’re not handcuffed to it. We have it for inspiration whenever we need it. It’s not like Game of Thrones or Lord of The Rings where the fans will kill you if you deviate from the story of the book.

In the pilot episode, the Ark is very clean – but the story suggests it’s battered, old and falling apart. Will that change after the pilot?

Any part of the Ark should feel like it’s going to fall apart, so I think you’ll soon start to see people welding in the back of a shot and things like that on the show. It’s all on the table. And, of course, that will follow on the ground as well. As they begin to become more dirty and sweaty and wild, that will follow with their appearance. And it’ll be sexy! The more messed up they get, the more their hair gets crazy, and the more sun-kissed their faces will become. That’ll be the evolution I think.

Wait a minute… It’ll get sexy?

Yes. It’ll get sexy! That’s all sexy to me. Listen, I was talking about Romancing The Stone recently. It’s a totally different story, but remember Kathleen Turner in that movie? The worst she got, the better she looked. We’re going to be doing similar things.

ENDS.