EW called it “The It Script.

“Yeah, I remember that.

I guess that was the kiss of death!

Well, not quite.

Before we do our annual check-in on the state of the script, let’s talk about the book.

Does it feel like it’s been 20 years?

So, it’s weird.

It was a conversation killer.

People would be like, “Oh.

Is that coffee cake for dessert?

I have to go.”

There’s a great mythologizingaboutthe history of comic books woven in there.

Do you think the book helped legitimize the genre?

But there’s no doubt, the change had already begun.

I think one of the big landmarks unquestionably, undisputed landmarks, wasMauswinning a Pulitzer [in 1992].

But even so, that was such a cultural milestone.

It was so clearly a work of art, and a serious work of literature.

That was really a big turning point.

Comic books were sort of the last popular medium to be given that kind of prestige or esteem.

And the battle’s far from over, I would say, still.

But, I think it was a part of a movement.

But, I think there’s still a lot of conflict around it.

There’s still a lack of acceptance.

And that’s still very much present in comic books too.

When Charles Moulton Marston was writingWonder Woman, every issue ended up with her being tied up somehow.

It just seemed like it was going to be part of the story from the beginning.

So let’s have our apparently annual EW check-in on the adaptation ofKavalier & Clay.

Our plan is to have a season ready by the end of this year.

How many episodes do you anticipate that this will go?We anticipate, initially, two eight-episode seasons.

That’s the current plan.

So this would be a way to do that.

That might be really fun.

I worked on it for five and a half years, a two hour-plus feature film.

Then this moment of peak TV that we’ve been living through started to happen.

It was immediately appealing as a possibility.

Wouldn’t that be cool?”

But there were a lot of various legal issues that had to be resolved.

Paramount was the studio for the film.

The movie project was [now] in the same place essentially as a potential television project.

It became possible to make a lot of those legal, contractual settlements, to smooth those over.

A rare argument in favor of all of the studios becoming one.Yeah, right.

We tried various ways of doing it.

There’s this huge leap in the center of the book where we skip over about nine years.

So I’m glad we’re having a test to do it this way.

It’s not written as a scene and you have to write it as a scene.

The pacing is so different.

Adrien Brody, for example.

When Adrien Brody first appeared, he seemed perfect for Joe Kavalier.

“Not so much, not really, not in the same way as with Joe.

Joe is a voice that sort of has been more apparent.

I think Rachel Weisz, when she was young, would have been great for Rosa.

In fact, Natalie Portman was going to be in the film version back in 2005.

And she would have been good.

We actually did screen tests I wish they had them, I wish I could see them again.

Whoa.And they were babies.

I had never heard of either of them they were known on the stage in London at that point.

I think neither of them had done any movies, you know?

I’m like, God, these guys are incredible.

And then, yeah, 10 years later they’re everywhere, ubiquitous.

There’s a screen test with Ryan Gosling, he was amazing.

?He did a Czech accent [for Joe] that was beautiful.

So now, in a way I’m kind of agnostic about it.

I’m a little like, oh well, whoever it is will be good.

I’ve been through it so many times.

Now he’s like a grandpa.

It was just a terrible coincidence in a way.

The TV show,The O.C., loved the book.

In particular, the character of Seth, do you remember him?

It was his favorite book.

So he was always talking about it.

There’s this famous episode, the Chrismukkah episode, and it was the perfect Chrismukkah present.