Justified is back in all of its humorous and action-packed glory — and it turns out we have Quentin Tarantino to thank for it.
Justified: City Primeval was cooked up while Timothy Olyphant, who stars as old-school lawman Raylan Givens in the neo-Western drama, was chatting with Tarantino on the set of Tarantino's Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood.
Dave Andron and Michael Dinner, the showrunners of the reboot and original series, recalled the moment Olyphant called them up in an interview with EW.
"One day the phone rang and it was Tim Olyphant who said, 'I've been sitting on the set with Quentin, and we were talking about this book, City Primeval. We thought it would make a great year of Justified.' So we started kicking around the idea, and FX was into it," said Michael Dinner. "It was very complicated to put together because the rights situation was a little murky — part of the rights belonged to the estate, part belonged to MGM which was going to make this movie several times, and it took a while to get it going, but then we did."
Both City Primeval and the original Justified series are based on novels by Elmore Leonard. But City Primeval is considered Leonard's magnum opus. Many people have attempted to adapt the work as a film — including Tarantino.
"A lot of people had wanted to make this book before," Dinner said. "It almost got made by [Sam] Peckinpah years ago as a movie, and [Quentin] Tarantino wanted to make it as a movie, and a lot of people wanted to play with it in television, streaming or cable. We had a great experience doing Justified, and some years later Elmore's son had approached me about doing it as its own thing. I'd always loved the book, we always referenced it when we were in the writers' room on the original series, and so that was the intention: It was going to be its own thing."
Tarantino's interest in the project is why he had initially signed on to direct a few episodes of City Primeval. Alas, the plans fell through, and while City Primeval is planned as a one-season-and-done reboot, we're crossing our fingers for at least one more. If that happens, maybe we'll see Tarantino take the helm for an episode or two. After all, he's known to guest direct the odd episode of a show he fanboys over, including CSI and even Jimmy Kimmel Live!
