Atomic Cafe - der Podcast für Pop Culture
The Atomic Cafe Podcast: In diesem Popkultur-Cafe dreht sich alles um Kino, TV, Bücher, Podcasts, Musik, das Showbiz, Celebrities, Skandale – und um all die wunderbaren Nerd-Dinge, mit denen wir dem tristen Alltag entfliehen. Oder, um es mit „Matrix“ zu sagen: Wir nehmen die blaue Pille. Always!
Contact: atomic.cafe.podcast@gmail.com
Atomic Cafe - der Podcast für Pop Culture
SPECIAL: SCENE STEALERS #2 David W. Zucker – Alien: Earth, Blade Runner 2099 & the Shape of TV to Come
Scene Stealers: Stories from a TV Festival
Presented by the Atomic Café Podcast
🎧 Recorded live at the Monte Carlo TV Festival 2025
Welcome back to Scene Stealers, the Atomic Cafe Podcast mini-series where we go behind the velvet rope of television’s most cinematic minds. This episode, we sit down with David W. Zucker – longtime executive producer, chief creative officer at Scott Free Productions, and unofficial godfather of prestige genre television (no offense, Ridley).
We talk creatures (yes, plural) in FX’s Alien: Earth, philosophical futures in Blade Runner 2099, and why Zucker still can’t sleep after watching Alien.
💬 Topics include:
- Why Alien: Earth is more than just a xenomorph rehash – and how Noah Hawley is boldly going where even Ridley hesitated
- What went wrong (and right) behind the scenes of Blade Runner 2099
- Zucker’s early days as a screenwriter and how a job he did not look for turned into a 24-year creative partnership
- A hopeful, cautious look at the future of TV in a post-streamer consolidation world
- Why David's kids are obsessed with Prison Break
- The one book he’s dying to adapt: Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom
🛸 Yes, it’s sci-fi. But it's also a mirror to our transhumanist, late-capitalist now.
🎭 Yes, it’s horror. But David can’t even watch all of it. His kids can, though.
📉 And yes, TV is in chaos. But maybe that’s exactly what creativity needs.
Scene Stealers Episode #2 | Atomic Cafe Podcast spin-off
Guest: David W. Zucker
Hosted and produced by: Holger Potye
Location: recorded at the Monte Carlo TV Festival (2025)
BONUS Episode Scene Stealers Logo: Created with | by ChatGPT
MUSIC: „Guitar Songs“ provided by mobygratis
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Hosted by Babs Kaudelka, Holger Potye & Michi Reichelt
Producer: Holger Potye / Showrunner: Momo
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Exec Producer: Julia Rotter
Social Media Rep: Babs Kaudelka
Invisible Producer: Tim
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Der Atomic Cafe Jingle ist eine gekürzte Version des Wahlkampfspots „Daisy“ aus dem Wahlkampf zwischen Lyndon B. Johnson vs. Barry Goldwater aus dem Jahr 1964. Copyright: Library of Congress
INTRO: This is a spin-off format of the Atomic Cafe podcast. It's a mini-series called Scene Steelers, stories from a TV festival. And it features interviews with actors, producers, showrunners and creatives. Recorded at the Monte Carlo TV Festival 2025. Episode 2 features David Zucker, the chief creative officer of Ridley Scott's production company „Scott Free Productions“.
David is gonna give us some glimpses on the eagerly awaited sci-fi and horror TV series „Alien: Earth“ and „Blade Runner 2099“.
Hello David.
Hello.
I'd like to start with the elephant or rather the alien in the room. There is a tv series called „Alien: Earth“ coming up. It's a prequel to the first Alien movie. It will air on FX on Hulu on August 12th. You are serving as an exec producer on the show. What are you allowed to tell us about Alien Earth? It looks astounding. I've seen the trailer. It looks just beautiful.
Yeah. Well, I can tell you a little about the origin of it. If that's helpful. I mean, obviously Ridley resurrected the franchise with his sequels, about 15 years ago now. And there had been long ongoing inquiry about whether it would be possible to undertake a series pursuit of the franchise. But it really coalesced in John Landgraf's determination who runs FX to bring that franchise to FX. And then the benefit of his historic partnership and relationship with Noah Hawley, who brought this idea forward. That was sort of the inspiration that then hatched this pursuit. That was sort of shared with Ridley (Scott) and there were sort of initial creative conversations about the direction that Noah thought to undertake with it. And then it's been a prolonged journey from there mostly because of COVID and obviously some of the other interceding challenges we've all been trying to navigate. But we had a really thrilling experience filming in Thailand. And it's quite extraordinary. I mean I would say the one thing I can speak to explicitly among the many ambitions for the piece was the fact that Noah envisioned much to Ridley's delight introducing creatures beyond the xenomorph, you know, who we've spent decades encountering and is an extraordinary creation. But I think what's exciting about this in particular is Noah forging a very original creative path with the notion of bringing this horror to Earth, these sort of corporate ambitions and malfeasance that sort of complicate the story dramatically and this sort of dynamic figure of a formidable female lead again sort of carrying us through into this exploration of what transhumanism means to us and what is looking to be a very near future.
So it's sci-fi and at the same time it's political statement as well?
I don't know political statement as much as a socio-political statement. And one that it's, what I find so interesting with this series, not dissimilar to when we did „Man in the High Castle“ years ago is you.
Which was great, by the way.
Oh, thank you. It was, I mean, that show took an extraordinary long time to bring forward, but where you live within sort of the universe of this particular creative realm and through the course of producing the show, begin to encounter more and more potent resonance with the world as we're currently experiencing it. That became disturbingly true on „High Castle“- And it's interesting having shot the show some time ago, and now working through these episodes again in post-production, how a lot of these questions are taking on greater immediacy.
Absolutely. Do you have a favorite Alien movie?
Well, in all candor, I didn't see „Alien“ until I worked for Ridley (Scott).
I was too frightened by the advertisements when I was a kid, and I'm not one who tolerates horror very well. I don't have the stomach for it. So I actually didn't see it until they re-released it years ago, we went to a morning screening on the Fox lot, and I thought it was extraordinary. I mean, I'll be honest, and maybe this is a further testament to Noah's success with it, but there's parts of this series I can't watch either. My kids will love it, but I don't have the stomach for it.
Nice. There's not a great IP in the pipeline: „Blade Runner 2099“. Can you talk about this one? Are you allowed to talk about it?
Similar. Similar restriction because that one won't come to release till later next year.
Next year? I thought it's in the end of 2025.
No, this will come next year. We're just into post production on this now.
It will be on Amazon Prime, right?
That'll be Amazon Prime. Yeah.
And it's six episodes Is it more?
No, I think it's eight episodes Forgive me. I've got no it's fine different in my head up right now.
Yeah, I can imagine …
I'm almost certain it's eight episodes.
Okay eight episodes. It's Hunter Schafer, Tom Burke, Michelle Yeoh.
Yeah,
Cool. That's what I know.
Yes.
What do you know?
That was even harder to talk about right now because I mean I can tell you I mean I can tell you where we are at with it right now. And yeah, that's a harder one for me to talk about. That's probably this time next year would be better to talk about.
Oh God, David. I'm sorry. But can you talk about like the ideas behind it and the creative process in a way?
Well, it wasn't dissimilar in so far as Alcon Studios, who released „Blade Runner 2049“, had similar to some of the ambitions that effects were very keen to bring „Blade Runner“ to series and spent an extensive time soliciting ideas from various writers. When Silka Luisa brought her idea forward, they went through a cycle of development with it, and then Ridley was long attached to actually direct it. So that part I can tell you.
Yeah, please.
And he worked very closely with Al-Khan and with Silka. And then ultimately, the timing proved problematic because then „Gladiator 2“ ended up getting green lit, and so the production schedules aligned in an unfortunate way. So we had to find another director to come aboard, who proved to be Jonathan van Tulleken, who had just done „Dope Thief“ for us and had previously done „Shogun“. And we'd had a nice long relationship with him, and he did a terrific job. So I'd say with that one as well, Ridley's kept a very close alignment with it. I mean, you know, it is, I think that even in some ways quite different than „Alien“ is obviously a world creation that has made such an impression across film history and now it will be exciting to see how it sort of presents on the small screen.
Right.
Does that give you some?
Some.
A little bit.
A little bit, no, thank you. I'd like to talk about the future of TV as well in terms of streaming business, in terms of like BBC iPlayer and then YouTube as a streaming portal, can you elaborate on that?
I think your guess is as good as mine. I mean, I think we're at a junction right now where it's near impossible to predict what the landscape is gonna look at, both content-wise.
Are you happy with the situation like it is now?
I don't think there's much to be happy with at the moment in the sense that it is extremely unstable and it's pervasively unpredictable. And I think if there's a positive, it's that there's certainly great excitement and benefit from the global marketplace as now presides thanks to the streamers and looking at television well beyond the American domestic borders, which is historically up until the early part of this century, was really the predominant focus. And then American television would distribute to the world, but there wasn't much interest in dramatizing or embracing dramas beyond our borders. So I think that's been extraordinary and sort of long time in coming.
I think right now, as with so many things going on globally, we are going through such technological transformation, such political and social transformation, which typically makes for a good opportunity and richness in terms of creative expression and storytelling. But I think there's no reliability in terms of having a sense of projects one may bring to the fore and what kind of perception and opportunity may exist for those. And I don't think that's gonna change for some years to come. I think there's gonna be further consolidation. I mean, it's ironic that our domestic business in the US expanded as broadly as it has, and now we're in this reductive phase where we may end up with only four primary distributors, not dissimilar to when we had four primary networks. The only difference being when we had four networks, television was free, now we pay for everything.
True.
Not a small distinction. Certainly, with the profound kind of dollars behind these buyers allows the opportunity to make productions of this scale, but I think the long existing lifeblood of returning franchise dramas and serialized dramas is what we see the streamers beginning to recognize again and begin to resurrect again. And so I'm hoping the future will be one that allows for the coexistence of great international series, of ambitious genre series, and of long running adults and young adult drama series.
What do you think about the role of YouTube in the future?
I think it's gonna become increasingly more profound. I think what AI is undoubtedly going to provide is that much more capability for the individual creator to be able to realize ideas beyond one's imagination today, where you don't need the kind of sort of costs and production facilities that a lot of the studios are now essential for. And so, I mean, I look at my own kids.
How old are your kids?
I have twins who are 14. And I watch the way that they interact with sort of their sort of programming interests and there's a gaming portion of it. There, I mean, we actually, Shogun was family viewing for us and that was fantastic to have that kind of programming that we could watch together. They love their anime. They love, interestingly, some older returning dramas. They were watching „Prison Break“ of late. I don't know why, but they love that there were so many seasons of that that they could watch. And then there's their time on YouTube. And they have these very intimate connections to a lot of those creators.
And I think that's going to continue to expand profoundly. And so I think in the way that we've seen a reduction sort of on the feature side in terms of the narrowing of those lanes of the types of shows of films and the breadth of films, I think we may, over time, experience something similar on the TV side as YouTube, an individual sort of creative product takes more and more or fulfills more and more of the appetites.
I was surprised by myself actually watching „Shogun“ and I watched like the whole series with subtitles and it worked for me and I was surprised. Did you expect it to work out that way? That good?
I had no expectation but I could not have been more overjoyed that that was the success it was because it only benefits us all. And I think what FX has done historically and the kind of essential partnership that John Langraf and Gina Bailey and have with their creators is really the tradition that has created the best television on HBO and elsewhere throughout the years. I think that's something that is sadly absent with a lot of the streamers now because the relationship and even the strategy is driven much more by sort of the viles of Wall Street than necessarily what product may be in the offing to them creatively in Hollywood. So I'm hoping there'll be a rebalance once the streamers find more clarity and foundation of how they want to program and how they want to fund projects going forward. And I think we're starting to see some encouraging activity in that realm. But I think there's still a lot more to get settled over the next year or two. We don't know what's going to happen with Paramount. And we'll see what transpires with Universal, with Warner Brothers. I mean, our major studios may not look anything like what they have in a year or so. And then there's this new lawsuit that Disney and Universal have with Midjourney that will speak a lot to what kind of role studios are going to play relative to their copyright.
So there's many question marks out there.
And there's more by the day.
More by the day. Can we talk about your journey, actually, and how much it has changed over the years? I mean, you broke into business when?
Oh, I mean, I started back in the mid-80s. I've had a strange career because I've really only been with three companies. I worked at a company called Lorimar and then we were bought by Warner Brothers and I was there for about 10 years. And then I actually wrote for five years and worked on that side of the business. And then came to Scott Free in 2001 and I've been there 24 years.
Did you know Ridley Scott back then?
I didn't. I was actually represented at CAA as a writer, which is where they were represented as a producer. And in the '90s was on the heels of „ER“. There were a lot of feature directors and producers who thought, ah, television, Steven Spielberg's had such success with that, television would be a great place to venture into. And so there were on offer from a lot of the networks at that time, what they called these 3 for 1s, where they'd get into a deal with Ridley and Tony in this instance to say, we'll develop three projects toward producing one.
And so it happened that all of the people at CBS at the time with whom they did the deal were the same executives I had worked with when I was at Warner Brothers and I was at the same agency. So they had put us together to see if I would be interested in working in service of that. And I hadn't gotten a writing gig that year. And so I thought, well, this is something that's at least familiar. So I'll explore it for a time. And now it's been 24 years. „Numbers“ was the first series that came out of that deal. And then later „The Good Wife“.
Yeah. What are your favorite TV shows at the moment you are watching, not from you or your production company, Scott Freed? Is there something you were impressed by?
Yes. Well, I just enjoyed, I'm in the middle of enjoying „Day of the Jackal“. And Eddie Redmayne was actually in „Pillars of the Earth“. So I've had the pleasure of having known him for a very long time and really impressed with that series. I've mostly been sampling quite a bit, but that's when that comes very much to mind. [LAUGHTER] I haven't been home a lot.
Did you watch "Adolescents," for instance?
I did watch "Adolescents“. I watched that with the family, actually, with the kids. And I mean, it's, I as impressed with, I mean, that's another show like „Shogun“ that I think is powerful entertainment, but also one that you can only enthrall the fact that that got made, and it got supported as well as it did. Because it's a show that's dramatically compelling, but also is one that is valuable for people to encounter in the world that we're trying to sort out.
As a producer, what do you think of the one-shot thing going on in „Adolescence“? It must be horrendous.
I mean, having listened to Jack Thorn and Stephen Graham talk about the process of that undertaking, it's, I mean, it's something one can only admire. And then, you know, you wanna understand and sort of comprehend how they accomplished something like that. I really love what it accomplished from a performance and from a storytelling standpoint because if you become too cognizant of the one shot itself then it becomes a distraction. It's really a question of to what degree is that helping tell the story. And I think it speaks to how engrossing that show is dramatically that it works so effectively in support and doesn't become a bit of a, of just a fancy trick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me it worked because I didn't second screen. Normally I used to, okay. And then I thought, oh, there is no smart phone in my hand. It works.
Yes, that's the engrossing quality of it, yeah.
Have you been to the cinemas this year?
Cinemas. No, I wanna go, I wanna take the kids to „Mission Impossible“.
Ah, okay.
'Cause we liked the last, but I'll do that when I get home. What's the last thing I saw in cinema? I'm not doing good with the elections.
No, you're doing great this time.
Sorry.
Last question. Is there like a novel you'd love to make into a show, a TV show or something?
There is a novel that we've been trying to make into a TV show that I'm hoping we'll still have its day. We adopted the Jonathan Franzen novel, „Freedom“, and working with the wonderful writer, Melanie Marnich. We've attracted some of the most extraordinary talent to it. It is a limited series, which is not currently in vogue. And so we haven't secured a home for it yet.
But it's a really extraordinary novel that I think offers a romantic triangle of quite an unusual nature, but also speaks very potently to sort of the mindset of our existence in this kind of modern society quite brilliantly as the novel does. So I'm hoping that one will find its way.
David, thank you so much for your time.
Yeah, it's a pleasure to meet you.
