Anatomy of TV hit; ‘You’: right book, creators, global reach
When veteran TV producer Greg Berlanti was invited to adapt the novel “You” about a seductive charmer with a murderous streak, he immediately fixed on former “Supernatural” producer Sera Gamble as his collaborator.
It may sound “horrible” but was the opposite, Berlanti explains.
The book by Caroline Kepnes had “all the great things I love about Sera’s writing. It’s pulpy and addictive, but also highly intelligent and smart, and has something to say about our culture, our society,’” he said.
“You,” starring Penn Badgley as the violent and disturbed Joe, became a worldwide hit for Netflix after a low-key U.S. start on Lifetime. The drama, drawn from what became a bestselling series of novels, is in preparation for its fourth season. The release date has yet to be announced.
“It’s always so hard to predict how TV is going to do while you’re making it. You very much feel like you’re in a little bubble of production,” said Gamble, co-creator and executive producer of the show with Berlanti. She’s game to dissect the success she labels exciting.
“I do think that part of the reason it appeals to people all over the world is that what we’re exploring about love and obsession are completely universal and translates into every possible human language,” she said.
“Everybody knows that feeling of wanting someone that’s maybe bad for them, and wanting to know things they’re technically not supposed to know,” said Gamble, whose parents emigrated to the United States from Poland. “I don’t see why it would be any different in the United States than it is in India or Japan or anywhere.”
How Joe pursues his ill-fated objects of desire is through a mix of old-school, in-person stalking combined with social media spying and manipulation. That allows “You” to make satirical hay of people’s online posing and willingness to accept each other at Facebook value, among other modern habits.