It’s been nearly a year since the Justified revival Justified: City Primeval was officially announced. Since that time, details on the upcoming limited series have been sparse. However, today, thanks to EW, fans are getting a first look at Timothy Olyphant’s return as Raylan Givens.
This first-look image should have fans of Justified excited for its return. Olyphant looks to be right back in the groove as the Deputy U.S. Marshal, complete with the return of his trademark Stetson. There has been no official announcement on the release date, but it is expected Summer of 2023. Keep reading to see the first look and excerpts of the EW interview with series showrunners Dave Andron and Michael Dinner.
JUSTIFIED: CITY PRIMEVAL FIRST LOOK IMAGE
ABOUT JUSTIFIED: CITY PRIMEVAL
The new series will take its inspiration from Elmore Leonard’s novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. The new show is set to pick up eight years after the conclusion of the original Justified series. Raylan is still living in Miami working as a U.S. Marshal, and now co-parenting his teenage daughter. A turn of events forces Raylan to Detroit in pursuit of The Oklahoma Wildman, Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), a violent, sociopathic desperado on the run from the police.
In addition to Olyphant and Holbrook, the cast also includes Aunjanue Ellis, Adelaide Clemens, Vondie Curtis Hall, Marin Ireland, Norbert Leo Butz, Victor Williams, and Ravi Patel. Olyphant’s real-life daughter Vivian Olyphant will appear as Willa Givens, Raylan’s daughter.
HOW WILL IT COMPARE?
With all of the new faces and the location change from the hollers of Kentucky to the streets of Detroit, fans might be concerned the revival may not capture the magic of the original. Thankfully, showrunners Andron and Dinner are no strangers to Justified. Both served as executive producers on the original series. Original series creator Graham Yost is also back, who along with Olyphant will executive produce. Dinner says fans can expect something familiar but also something different.
“The cool thing about it is that tonally, it feels like the show we did, but it also feels very different. The great thing about doing Elmore’s stuff is that we say that you don’t see the joke coming, you don’t see the violence coming, and you don’t see the emotion coming sometimes, and everything kind of sneaks up on you. It’s surprising. To me, it feels like a grown-up version of what we did. It feels both familiar and different, and [has] all these new characters who feel of this universe.”
Andron also says that audiences will see some familiar faces, but to be prepared for a mostly new cast.
“Some old characters do show up, but that’s one of those things the audience is going to have to get their head around: It is a pretty new cast. It’s a new group of cops that are around him. It’s cops in Detroit, not marshals in Kentucky, and it really is a standalone Raylan story, just with a few old friends sprinkled throughout.”
TARANTINO HELPED BRING ABOUT THE REVIVAL
In the interview with EW, Andron and Dinner also provided details on how Quentin Tarantino helped make the revival a reality. Dinner had this to say when asked about returning to the world of Justified was not their original intention.
“We never intended to go back into the waters. But there was this book, City Primeval, which is kind of a crown jewel of Elmore Leonard’s work. It was his first Detroit crime novel and that kicked off his becoming the preeminent writer of American crime fiction.
A lot of people had wanted to make this book before. It almost got made by [Sam] Peckinpah years ago as a movie, and [Quentin] Tarantino wanted to make it as a movie, and a lot of people wanted to play with it in television, streaming or cable. We had a great experience doing Justified, and some years later Elmore’s son had approached me about doing it as its own thing. I’d always loved the book, we always referenced it when we were in the writers’ room on the original series, and so that was the intention: It was going to be its own thing.
And then one day the phone rang and it was Tim Olyphant who said, “I’ve been sitting on the set with Quentin, and we were talking about this book, City Primeval. We thought it would make a great year of Justified.” So we started kicking around the idea, and FX was into it.”
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
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Source: Entertainment Weekly
