INTERVIEW: Joe Russo On Bringing ‘Citadel’ To Audiences Around the World
Citadel may be the latest adventure for Prime Video but it is also a series produced by the duo of the Russo Brothers. Teaming up with their production company AGBO, the series is an action-packed look into two spies as they’re trying to navigate life post a mind-altering event but one thing about this story is that it isn’t just one that is specific to an American based audience. And that’s something that appealed to Joe Russo as a creative.
In speaking with Russo and writer David Weil for the premiere of the series, that’s clearly something they’ve thought about in creating a show like Citadel. Russo talked about creating a playground for artists and creatives around the world to create in and how Prime Video’s head Jennifer Salke helped to bring a show like Citadel to different audiences everywhere. Especially starting with this first season with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden.
“Well, it was one of the more ambitious concepts we’d ever heard,” Russo said. “It was pitched to us by Jen Salke who runs Amazon Prime. And she had an idea where she said, ‘look, I wanna build a US language show that then can spin off into regional versions of the show told by artists in those regions in their language. Can you come up with an idea that would work for people around the world to play in the same sandbox together?’ One, I was like, that’s an incredible idea because stories are one of the last things that still bind all of us together in a very divisive world. And two, she’s championing diversity in an incredible way, in a way that very few people have honestly in this business. So, we said hell yes, and got to work thinking about what kind of story would make the most sense. And we settled on the spy world as having being the most fertile ground for that kind of concept.”
You can see our full chat here:
Citadel airs on Prime Video.
(Featured image: Prime Video)
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