Executive Producers Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas have two series on their plate this season, both of which will be spotlighted today at Comic-Con.
The first is Resurrection, and we just posted an interview about what is coming up for Season 2. The other is the highly anticipated Marvel’s Agent Carter, which stars Hayley Atwell from the Captain America: The First Avenger movie as well as the Agent Carter short film that appeared on a Blu-ray disc.
How are they handle it?
“It’s only six months,” Tara Butters says. “I figured it was six months, we could do it,” she continues, adding that they have some good support. “We have really good people on both shows, and there’s two of us,” she adds.
“We couldn’t be happier about being on this project. The timeframe is post-war, so after she’s lost Captain America, that’s where we open it,” Fazekas says about the show’s origins, saying that the Agent Carter short is actually where the story ends. “I would say that the short ended with her going to S.H.I.E.L.D., so that would be the very end of the series. So, we are kind of in that world,” Fazekas explains.
“With eight episodes, just like the first season of Resurrection, you’re really able to craft an arc. We keep talking about it as eight parts of a movie, and each episode should both be satisfying on their own, but at the same time keep building, and building the story so that we’ll hopefully have a really impactful [series] – and hopefully something that gets us a second season,” Tara Butters says about the show, which will run for eight weeks in the timeslot usually occupied by Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
The only casting announced for Agent Carter so far — and this could change after today’s Comic-Con panel — is Hayley Atwell, who played Peggy Carter in the previous projects. “She’s lovely, and she’s so excited. I guess on the short, she was like ‘I’ll do my own stunts!’ which I love, but I’m also like ‘let’s not break your face. We might have to have a stunt person.’ But, she’s so excited. We spent time with her at the International Upfronts, and she was taking pictures with everyone, and talking to everyone… she’s just excited,” Michele Fazekas tells us.
While no Agent Carter/S.H.I.E.L.D. crossovers are planned just yet, there are connections between the writing teams. “We do spend time with them. We know a lot of the Marvel writers because we worked with them. I was an assistant on The X-Files when Jeff Bell was there. We worked with Jed and Mo on Dollhouse. We worked with Paul Z. on Hawaii Five-0. So I think in the end, we’ve talked, but if there’s an organic way to even have little Easter eggs… as long as it doesn’t feel silly, and it really makes sense. Everybody’s hoping for that,” Fazekas says. “I will say, the nice thing is we pre-date the movies, we pre-date a lot of the Marvel Universe, so I don’t feel hamstrung by stuff, but I also feel like if it makes sense, story-wise, to touch on those things, [we would].”
“Even if you haven’t seen Captain America, ultimately you could enjoy this series for what it is,” Butters adds.
“This is an ABC audience, which by and large are not comic book people, so my goal is let’s do a show where you don’t have to know a single thing about Captain America, anything Marvel, and you can still enjoy the show. The nice thing about the world we are in, I feel like we can do that really well,” Michele promises, before Butters chimes in with her description of the series in eight words: Alias in the 40’s with a Marvel twist.
“The idea that it’s a female driven spy show, set in the 40’s, but it’s going to have that Marvel [feel]. There’s conspiracy, and action, but emotional. Because at the end of the day, Alias was a great emotional story,” she says.
A conversation with Fazekas and Butters wouldn’t be complete without addressing the green arrow in the room — specifically, that Butters, who is now one of the showrunners on a Marvel project, is married to author/writer/producer Marc Guggenheim, who is one of the showrunners for Arrow, based on a DC Comics property. Is there a Marvel/DC rivalry going on in their home?
“Oh yeah,” Tara said. “For Comic-Con, our daughters both want to dress up. So we were like, ‘okay, one of you has to pick a Marvel character. The other of you has to pick a DC. And so, we have Kitty Pryde and Black Canary.”
With that said… Tara Butters is a huge fan of her husband’s show. “I have to say, the second season was SO good. The only note I had for him was [that] I loved Brother Blood, and I wanted more of him!” she enthuses. “I wanted more of that relationship, because it was so interesting to see that they actually could become friends, and I just wanted more of it.”
Are there any lessons Agent Carter could learn from Arrow? “One of the things that they do wonderfully is that mix of continuing storyline and feeling like a completion in every episode. As a fan, I just love the show, and I think they do a wonderful job. I also think it looks fantastic, and I am a fan of the show,” Butters says.
Marvel’s Agent Carter will premiere midseason on ABC.
