INTERVIEW: Behind-the-scenes secrets revealed on Syfy’s ‘Dominion’

Dominion, the new Syfy series based on the religious science-fiction movie Legion, is set to premiere Thursday, June 19 at 9 p.m. For Vaun Wilmott, co-executive producer of the ambitious series, that hour of television will be the culmination of a long journey that began two years ago and has taken him to South Africa and a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas and back.

“Basically it started out with the movie Legion,” Wilmott said recently during a phone interview. “And the company that produced Legion is a company called Bold Films, and David Lancaster was the E.P. on Legion. And when they did the movie, they carved out the TV rights. So about two years ago, David decided to basically go ahead and try to make it as a TV show. And they went out to a bunch of writers, TV writers, to come in, give their take, how they would do it — the idea for the show, the characters, etc. And I came in and pitched on it, really hit it off with David, really hit it off with the group. And then came in about a week later and met with Scott [Stewart], who was the director of Legion and co-writer of Legion, and we all just really hit it off. They really responded to my take for the material, and then we went from there. I got the gig, and I went out and pitched it. And we sold it to Syfy.”

After scoring the gig, Wilmott had a lot of work to complete. Unlike network shows, which often write, break and edit episodes at the same time, Dominion was a little more chronological. Wilmott’s first step was to amass a qualified team of writers. They came together in a room (probably with copious amounts of coffee), spitballed for a bit and then developed season arcs for the series.

The show straddles several genres, including science fiction and religion. It tells the story of Gabriel (Carl Beukes) and his band of lower angels who continue to wage war against humans. The events of the series take place 25 years after “The Extinction War,” when archangel Michael (Tom Wisdom) decided to go against his brethren and protect the human race. Much of the action is set in a “new” Las Vegas called Vega. The protagonist is Alex Lannon (Christopher Egan), who was a baby in Legion, but is now considered a hero of the series.

 

After the general outline was created, individual acts and scenes for each episode were drawn out on elaborate storyboards. An individual writer then took the plans and developed a particular episode. On top of heading the writing process, Wilmott had several approval responsibilities as well.

“It’ll be costume approval, it’ll be set approval, production design approval,” he said. “So we’re constantly looking at images from the set of what they plan on putting on the actors. It ranges from something as small as a weapon or even like a prop to the entire set design. It involved interfacing with the studio and the network on notes, on pitching them ideas. It’s kind of all encompassing. … You juggle a lot of balls day to day.”

The finished product, according to Wilmott, is better than what he expected.

“For me, when I watched the movie, once you kind of get to the end of the movie, throughout it you see this kind of conflict between Michael and Gabriel fighting over this baby, that triangle. … It was very clear to me that I could make a TV show from that, and I just started building the world out from there. For me, the crux, the kernel, the DNA of the show started there for me definitely. … I thought to myself, the war happened. What if we started 25 years later, and that baby was now a grown man? Where would he be? What would he be like? What would Gabriel be doing? What would Michael be doing? And then the show just kind of blossomed from there.”

Even though Syfy couples the show with other post-apocalyptic fare (Defiance), Wilmott said Dominion’s sci-fi world is different. Sure, it’s a dystopian mess with the requisite levels of despair, disorder and destruction, but there’s also a great deal of hope. “We actually won the Extermination War,” he said. “We built this city, a wall around Vegas, we have water and agro-towers that produce food and we have power. And so the world is very, certainly within the walls of Vegas, is quite hopeful because we actually protected and reestablished our civilization. … Although there will be struggles and all kinds of horrible stuff that takes place, in the end it is a hero’s journey, and I do see there being a lot of hopeful elements to the series.”

The angels in the series are envisioned to be individuals with free choice. Some of them make mistakes; Wilmott said they are not “drones.”

“For me, the overarching theme for the show is very much an absentee father. Certainly it’s one of the themes that’s very important to me. I lost my own father when I was 20, and I never really realized, in terms of how much this infuses this piece, until just a couple of months ago. But they’re all kind of reeling from the fact that God, the father, has just disappeared and left them to their own devices, and now the kids are fighting it out, left alone. But in our show definitely there are good angels, and there are bad angels.”

Moving from a movie to a TV series can trip up some writers and producers. Two hours being expanded to one hour per week, with the potential of several years of content, is a daunting challenge.

“In movies you do have to have that beginning, middle and an end, and you’ve got two hours to basically tell that controlled story. But in a show you’re able to really explore the nuances of why characters do things, and you can really have them change in ways and interesting ways over the course of the series. And one of the things that’s really important to me is certainly for the antagonists, like Gabriel, and some of the other antagonists on the show, is even though you may despise what they do or what they’ve done, I always want there to be a kernel of understanding where they’re coming from. They’re not just one-dimensional monsters. They actually have a point of view that you can kind of look at and go, yeah, I can see why they’re doing what they’re doing, or why they think they should do what they’re doing. So absolutely I think bad guys will be good sometimes, and good guys will be bad. We will certainly have those changes.”

For the series, which was shot in South Africa, there seems to be great potential to go five, six or seven seasons. With such cosmic narratives and supernatural elements, a lot of the universe’s questions are asked on an episodic basis.

“It’s a great what if,” Wilmott said. “What if angels came out of the sky and suddenly they were real? What would that look like, what would that be like, how would that change people’s beliefs in their behaviors and their point of views?”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Dominion premieres Thursday, June 19 at 9 p.m. on Syfy. Click here for more information.