It Starts On The Page (Drama): Read ‘Paradise' Episode 1 Script 'Wildcat Is Down' With Foreword By Dan Fogelman
In his follow-up to his acclaimed NBC family drama This Is Us, Dan Fogelman switched genres — and mixed genres, too — with Hulu's Paradise, a political thriller that incorporates elements of apocalyptic science fiction. It marked Fogelman's first series creation for streaming where he already had a hit with Hulu's Only Murders in the Building, which he executive produces.
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It also reunited Fogelman and his Emmy-winning This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown, who headlines Paradise as Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins. Season 1's official logline sets up the pilot episode, 'Wildcat Is Down,' written by Fogelman and directed by his frequent collaborators Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who also helmed the This Is Us pilot: Paradise takes place in a serene community inhabited by some of the world's most prominent individuals. But this tranquility explodes when a shocking murder occurs, and a high-stakes investigation unfolds.
In addition to setting up the series, in its final seconds, the premiere serves the first of Paradise's many jaw-dropping twists.
Here is the script for 'Wildcat is Down' with an intro by Fogelman. In it, he reveals how a kernel of an idea he got more a decade ago from a loud construction noise during his drive home from a business meeting with a powerful Hollywood type led to Paradise.
About a year after This Is Us ended, I started feeling the familiar itch to get off my ass and write something new for television. I mused on multiple ideas but kept returning to a specific kernel of a notion – a notion I'd had over a decade earlier.The backstory: As a much younger writer I once found myself in a general meeting with a powerful player in our industry – a person of great reach, resource, and wealth. As I chatted with him (or her, I'll never tell) I was struck by the design (and size) of their office, the seemingly infinite reach of their rolodex and power. While that person talked to me, my mind wandered and I started wondering if I was in the room with my first ever billionaire.I started musing how many people worked to make that person's life run smoothly.I was young(er), I was nervous, I don't remember what we talked about.But on the drive home, a large crane at a nearby construction site dropped something. There was a loud BOOM. I jumped, then realized this wasn't a mass casualty event… simply a loud everyday construction noise.Then I thought about the person I'd just met with – this person of seemingly unearthly wealth and power. I thought of all the people who worked to serve that person and I wondered: 'If the sh*t ever hit the fan for real, wouldn't those people all run to their own people? Wouldn't they abandon the person they are employed to serve?I started thinking of the interplay of those in power and those who serve them. I started imagining someone whose job it was to literally take a bullet for a person in immense power – a secret service agent to a President. I started thinking about billionaires, and the strange power their wealth provides, and I started wondering… what if the loud BOOM I'd heard had been real. And what if people with immense power knew it was coming, and had the time to gather their resources and plan for it… so that when it happened, they wouldn't be left in the lurch like the rest of us.I started imagining a pilot with a late surprise – one that revealed that the Presidential murder mystery the audience thought they were watching, was really something else.And then I sat on the idea for over a decade.But fast forward ten or so years, I was getting that post This Is Us writing itch, and I returned to idea. I wrote the screenplay first, refusing to acknowledge even to myself that I was clearly writing the lead agent role for Sterling K. Brown, and refusing to commit to it as a TV series until I sat with my producing partner Jess Rosenthal and my two friends (and eventual senior writer/producers) John Hoberg and Scott Weinger to chat with experts and figure out what exactly this series was beyond the pilot.Once I had that, we shared it with our supportive partners at 20th, Disney, and Hulu — and then my old pals Sterling K. Brown, John Requa, Glenn Ficarra, and Steve Beers — and we were off to the races… shooting an idea that I'd been thinking about for over a decade… an idea born out of a meeting with a rich guy (or gal) and one hell of a loud boom.
Dan Fogelman
Read the script below.
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