Breaking Baz: ‘Supacell’s Rapman Utilized His Own Superpower To Survive Making Earthshaking Netflix Superhero Drama
28.06.2024 - 09:47
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Rapman utilized a superpower of his own — one that didn’t require him to don figure-hugging spandex tights and a cape — to survive the setbacks he encountered making the earthshaking new Netflix drama Supacell that began streaming Thursday.
“My superpower is discipline,” he declares.
Having an indomitable will comes in handy, too.
Rapman required his superpower to be at full throttle to help him wind his way through a thicket of obstacles.
For starters, he began the process in 2020, the year the pandemic hit everything. There were often heated and frank discussions over writers, special effects (the usual), and two composers came and went before he persuaded Netflix to let him chime with a third, Sillkey, the songwriter, producer and musician.
Having persuaded commissioners at Netflix to develop his idea of a drama about a group of regular people in south London who become mysteriously afflicted — because it’s like an illness — with superpowers, Rapman spent six months writing drafts, alone and then in a writers room, for three of its six episodes and the show’s bible.
Netflix rejected them, leaving Rapman feeling dejected and demoralized.
The Netflix executives, Rapman tells me, “felt that it wasn’t the show I’d originally pitched.”
Rapman held his arms out. “You see me, I’m very straightforward. If I’m happy, I’m happy. And if I’m pissed, I’m pissed. If I’m hurt, I’m hurt. I’m just not fake. They’re very blunt at Netflix and I feel like they needed to be and they’re like, look man, we believe in you still, but this aint it, basically.”
One of the Netflix executives informed him they could redevelop the show, starting from scratch.
It could take five years, they reckoned.
“I told them, I need a week.