INTERVIEW: Go behind-the-scenes of Hulu’s hit show ‘Hit-Monkey’
Image courtesy of Hulu / Provided with permission.
A lesser-known Marvel character is receiving a big spotlight this month. Move aside Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man and Captain America. It’s time to meet Hit-Monkey, a Japanese snow monkey who is on a revenge mission to disrupt the Yakuza underworld.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey premiered this week on Hulu. The series features the voice talents of George Takei, Jason Sudeikis, Olivia Munn, Ally Maki, Nobi Nakanishi and Fred Tatasciore, all under the direction of co-creators and executive producers Josh Gordon and Will Speck. The character appeared in a three-issue arc in comic book form and then popped up in various issues with other Marvel characters. This is the first time the story of this assassin has been adapted for TV.
In the show, Tatasciore voices the title character, while Takei, the legendary actor of Star Trek fame, voices Shinji Yokohma. Suideikis is Bryce, while Munn plays Akiko. Maki is Haruka, and Nakanishi voices Ito. Together the ensemble create a violent, blood-splattered tale of revenge for mature audiences.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox had the chance to talk with Gordon and Speck about the new series. The two are known for their work on Will Ferrell’s Blades of Glory, TV’s Cavemen, and The Switch starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. The team was also nominated for an Oscar in 1999 for the short live action film Culture. Here’s what they had to say …
On whether they pitched Marvel, or Marvel pitched them …
SPECK: We pitched them. We always said that we would tell anyone that was listening how much we were obsessed with Hit-Monkey. We got really lucky in going into Marvel just at the right time of day [on] the right day and having them say, ‘You know what, we’ve heard this before, but somehow we get your approach to it.’ So we felt really luck about that.
On what attracted them to the story of Hit-Monkey …
GORDON: It’s one of the best origin stories we think in the whole Marvel universe. It’s filled with incredible cinematic pathos, and it breaks your heart. It’s really powerful, but also to us when we read it, it was so odd and just kind of off the wall, this idea of accepting this killer assassin monkey as a real driven yakuza or western revenge saga. The idea of trying to pull that off and actually make the audience invest in that was just the kind of challenge we look for. We were always drawn to it as this weirdly complex material that was also totally bananas and off the wall.
On whether fans should first read the comics …
GORDON: The great thing about Marvel is that you can always watch the movies or watch the TV show and then go and check out the original source material, which is always pretty amazing. So we would always encourage people to go and buy the issues and all that. We designed the show to honor the original series, which was a really small series. It was only three issues, and then he filtered into Deadpool and a little Spider-Man and a few other issues. What we really wanted to do was honor the original episode because that really was the launching pad for us, and that really is the pilot of our show. So being able to do that, it does catch you up to everything you need to know about the character.
On whether they had creative freedom over the character …
GORDON: That was what was so appealing to us about it was so many other characters in Marvel have a huge legacy and a huge history to them, and Marvel takes that really seriously. So if you’re developing stuff, there are whole departments of Marvel that tell you if what you’re doing works within canon and works within the history of the character. The great thing about this character was there’s this incredible kick-ass origin story and then almost nothing that follows. So we were very free to be able to interpret it and change it, and there wasn’t this big fear on Marvel’s standpoint of, oh gosh, you’re taking this character into areas that we don’t want it to go because they were like, yeah, let’s build this character out and figure out what we can do with him. It’s a perfect creative situation for us.
On having a diverse voice cast …
GORDON: It was enormously important to us, and we were beyond thrilled that George Takei decided to take on the role of Shinji, that Olivia Munn took on the role of Akiko, that Ally Maki took on the role of Haruka, that Nobi did Ito. It was really important to us to find these incredible Japanese and Asian actors to interpret these roles, and obviously when you’re lucky enough to work with George Takei, the characters take on almost mythic status. We were really beyond thrilled to work with him.
On what it was like to work with Takei …
GORDON: He’s recognizable for his voice because he’s maybe one of the greatest living actors alive. When you write a character like Shinji and then he’s reading it and he delivers these speeches, especially some of the speeches later in the season, you do a take and you’re like, yeah, I think we got that. That was absolutely exactly as we imagined it being read. The talent always trumps the recognizability for us.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Hit-Monkey, co-created and produced by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, is now available to stream on Hulu. Click here for more information.
