“We had all these juicy nuggets from Season 1 that we never got to explore,” says Steven DeKnight, the showrunner and executive producer of Starz’ Spartacus series, explaining the motivation behind the six-episode “prequel” series, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, coming in 2011.
“Of course, the big thing was the chance to have John Hannah [who played Batiatus] and Lucy Lawless [who played Lucretia] together again for six episodes,” DeKnight adds. “I adored working with John, loved writing for him. It was a thrill to do that again.”
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena tells the story of Batiatus’ ludus prior to Spartacus’ arrival.
“We allude to a lot of things in Season 1 that happened in the past but you never see,” DeKnight says. “For instance, we talk about how Ashur was crippled in the arena. We talk about Crixus. And there’s a lot between Thelonius and Batiatus. In Season 1, we just picked up where they hate each other, but where did that come from? You’ve got the whole affair going on between Crixus and Lucretia. How did that come about?”
At one point in the show’s first season, the audience learned that Doctore [played by Peter Mensah] had a wife, but it was only a couple of lines.
“We really wanted to explore that,” DeKnight says. “What happened? You get the feeling that something bad happened but we never say what it was. … We were all very excited to get back in that gladiator world and explore some of these stories, and really bring some of those characters to the forefront that due to time constraints and the weight of the story, we weren’t able to do in Season 1.”
Had star Andy Whitfield not been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, the prequel probably wouldn’t have existed at all - - although the producers had been considering telling some of these stories in graphic novel form.
“The first thing that happened after all of our concerns was making sure he was okay and giving him enough time to go through treatment and recover,” DeKnight says. “We immediately shut down production in New Zealand. The writers kept working [on Season 2] because we were waiting for the full prognosis and how long the treatment would be. We got close to halfway through the scripts when we got the full prognosis on Andy what the extent of his treatment would be. Cancer is never good, but we were very thankful it was such a strong prognosis.”
Given Whitfield’s expected medical treatment, and given the recovery and training needed to get the actor back in physical shape, the second season had to be pushed to at least summer 2011.
“That would have meant the show would have been off the air 16-18 months, which was obviously a concern,” DeKnight says. “We didn’t want people to forget the show or lose interest.”
The producers’ first idea was doing a two-hour special event.
“I was planning on doing a flashback episode in Season 2 because John Hannah said he loved working with us so much, he graciously said, ‘If you ever want to have me back, let’s see if we can work something out.’ So we were planning a flashback episode, and I figured, ‘Well, why not blow it up into two hours?’”
Starz wasn’t enthusiastic about a two-hour movie. “So [co-creator] Robert Tapert said, ‘Well what about four hours?’” DeKnight says. “Four hours is an odd duck from a writing point of view. You don’t have enough time to build intricate storylines, but it’s too long to do a nice, tight story.”
Finally, Starz gave a counter-offer: how about six hours? “At that point, everybody was in,” DeKnight says. “That’s how the prequel came about.”
Is DeKnight concerned about disappointing fans?
“Oh, absolutely,” he says. “It keeps me awake at night. It’s always very, very dangerous to change the formula that works. It’s a testament to Starz that, even though they had the same jitters, they said, ‘Nope. Creatively we understand what you’re doing, so go for it.’ It is a different show, without a doubt. Will people enjoy it as much? I hope so. I hope they enjoy it more. But it’s definitely a roll of the dice.”
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Definitely excited about season 2 approaching, however, I’m sure the prequel will be exciting too. It was a good idea, 18 months off the air is detrimental to any show that was only on for one season. However, true fans of the show will eagerly wait for it. It will be hard to watch without the main character, but hopefully those missing parts of each characters story will be well told, and keep interest.
I can’t wait! Batiatus and Lucretia were my favourite characters in Blood and Sand, so to watch a “prequel” series built around their characters will be a huge treat.
Someone just needs to make some Spartacus action figures (in accordance with DeKnight’s wishes) to that I can create my own Spartacus stories and battles in the interim.
I’m sorry, I misunderstood. This is a ‘prequel’. Not an actual series, usually 6 episodes would be considered a series. So I don’t think I would mind this, but it might get a little boring, like I said. Can’t wait for Season 2!
Honestly, I will not mind this at all. Just the fact that it might drag on too long. I would be willing to watch this ‘flashback’ for probably 2 episodes, but would most likely get bored because eventually because of they fact that I would want to see what happens to Spartacus and everybody (From the end of Season 1 onwards). I would think that they should at least make it a 2 episode summary of what happened before Spartacus arrives, but the whole season being a flashback may be a stretching it. Even if they decided to make a 3rd Season aimed towards what happens after the end of Season 1, they would most likely lose viewers because of the fact that Season 2 would be for the most part, unappealing or boring.