Grant Morrison Talks ‘Brave New World’ Details, Season Two, and The Flash Script

Brave New World is an interesting utopian thriller on the Peacock app. Based on Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel, it was both a product of the time and a commentary on where our world could lead to one day. It’s about the removal of individualism and absolute control over a society, which genetically makes their children. Everyone is categorized in classes that they cannot break away from. And there’s sex. Lots and lots of sex.

Grant Morrison is mostly known for his comic-book work. But, he was the one who brought Brave New World to life for Peacock. In a phone interview with Collider, he talked about certain decisions made for the show. As well as whether or not the series will get a second season.

Spoilers For ‘Brave New World’ Ahead

Collider: So, talk to me about how you got involved originally with Brave New World?

GRANT MORRISON: Well, it was pretty early in the process. Back when I was working on Happy! with UCP, they asked me and Brian Taylor to pitch for Brave New World. And we had a particular take, which focused more on what I guess I would call the utopian aspect than the dystopian aspect, and people really liked what we came up with. So, it started there, but Brian was already working with Happy! Season 2, so I stayed with Brave New World. And then David Wiener came on board and rebuilt type of thing. And so I worked with David in the writer’s rooms and was pretty involved with the project. So, that was the history of it for me.

Why were you interested in coming at the story from the utopian aspect?

MORRISON: Well, I felt we’d already seen so many stories where we see the oppressed underclass rising up. It’s such a token in science fiction and it’s again a Marxist idea of the proletariat revolt. So, we’ve seen it in things like Westworld or Metropolis or so many things, and usually all of those stories end with a riot in the streets and everyone’s dead and the treasures of civilization lie in ruins and we’re supposed to applaud at this point.

So, what we wanted to do was let’s take Huxley’s world on its own merits and look at the ways in which it might actually work. And in what ways is it better than the world we live in? There is no hunger. There is no want, except for people who chose to secede from the World State and the World State culture. So, we decided, let’s look at what works here and then examine the utopia. It’s not about destroying. It is not about bringing it down. It’s about seeing if a utopia can be improved.

And that was part of why the character of Lenina [played by Jessica Brown Findlay] was more foregrounded. Because we wanted to see her in a Beta Plus status, where she’s found a certain role in life. And being the person who what she learns in the Savage Lands is actually able to improve and evolve the society without tearing it down. And the converse of that is John, John the Savage [played by Alden Ehrenreich], who comes from a culture that’s degraded. 300 years have passed. America’s fallen and he’s still thinking in the old way. He thinks he can foment revolutions.

He thinks he can create an uprising of the exploited. And in this world, it just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t work. We’ve moved on beyond all these notions and ideas. So, it was about that. It’s about showing this culture has actually been stronger. It’s not one of those stories where the savage, although he’d punched someone in the nose, by not punching someone in the nose, it warns against the notion of the natural authentic man rising up and beating the hell out of this synthetic human.

And I think that really came from Huxley, because it’s not that simple story of here’s this guy uprising. As Huxley wrote, John is much as a victim of his conditioning as anybody in the World State. But on top of that, he also has to deal with poverty and rejection and all those other things that they have wisely got rid of.

These stories are very much written as a product of its era.

MORRISON: Yeah. Well, and particularly, I mean, what Huxley was talking about was of his time. Again, that’s why we wanted to show his fears were based on what will happen if thy extrapolate the ideas coming out of America, like mass production. Using the Model-T and then in the books, Ford is an almost God-like figure. [Today], most people wouldn’t even think to Ford as a progenitor of mass production. But in Huxley, human beings are mass-produced and everything’s perfect.

One of the things we talked about for the TV show was every blade of grass is the same blade of grass. The same perfect… Every leaf on every tree is the same perfect leaf. And they’ve got it all figured out, but they’ve lost things that maybe to us seem important. But you have to ask the question, are they really important? And that’s John’s question. And I think all of that was present in Huxley and we just brought that forward a little bit more to apply to where we are now in the world for that system. The system that Ford began. The capitalists gobbling up machines has led us to the verge of destruction.

When you were coming at developing this project, was it at any point in your heads a limited series? Or was it always the idea that it would be more than one season of a show?

MORRISON: I think when you’re doing television there’s always the potential that if this is popular, it can continue. So, yeah, I mean, that was built in. The world that was created, we have a huge bible that we go into the language and the naming conventions. Why is CJack called CJack? What America’s like? And what the rest of the world’s like? There’s a lot of material there that can still be explored and delved into. But yeah, we definitely wanted to leave it open for potential future seasons.

What kind of a path do you feel like those seasons would take?

MORRISON: I don’t know. I think it’s just too early days. And there hasn’t even been a renewal for it yet. So, that’s the sort of thing that comes out of the hardcore discussion that went on for over a year in the writer’s room for Brave New World Season 1. So, now I really want to protect it at that point. Because I think once we apply all those genius minds to what may happen, anything could happen.

Another detail I want to ask about in terms of changes from the book to the show is, well, I very much remember the first time I read Brave New World as a teenager, and reacting pretty strongly to the way women were depicted. It’s a science-fiction book written in the 1930s by a man, so I wasn’t shocked. But that definitely seems to be something that was on your minds when you were handling the adaptation.

MORRISON: Actually, I mean, to me it was foremost. I mean, I had the same visceral reaction to Lenina’s demise at the end of the book, but It just seemed almost gratuitous. I don’t know what Huxley was trying to say about it, but it definitely didn’t work. She just seemed to be a punching bag for a sociopath. So, we had to get a lot of work done. And for me, she’s really the central character. She’s the person who outgrows her caste identification. She lures people in to be the plus that she is born to be and that makes her interesting.

And she’s someone who has ideas, she can improve systems. And so I like the idea of John’s representative of the old school revolutionary, who just wants to destroy things. Then you worry about what to build on once they’re ruined, once he’s surrounded by ruins. And what he adds to me was he’s the female network point of view. And it’s not about smashing things down. It’s about evolving things to update our level. So, yeah, that very much became the central core of the emotional journey of those two characters. And she, to me is very much the chief, the reformer, and the redeemer of the whole story.

And that’ll be something exciting for Season 2.

MORRISON: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, because maybe it’s a guide to a very different place. So, there’s a lot to play with, I think, moving forward. And the characters are all going to clash against each other.

One thing I wanted to be sure to ask, even though I’m pretty sure you won’t give me an answer, is what’s up with the gold box?

MORRISON: You have to wait and find out. [laughs] It’s one of those magical mystical boxes that you get in things like Kiss Me Deadly or Pulp Fiction, you’re asking what the hell’s in the box? There’s always a box or something in the box and yeah, you’ll find out in season two, I imagine.

In all honesty, do you guys actually have a plan for what’s in the box?

MORRISON: I’m sure David has a plan. I think that was an addition that David put in there. But if he has a plan, I mean, I’ve not been privy to all of it. It’s all, I think, a mystery. And yeah, he won’t want me to tell you.

The interview moved then from Brave New World to The Flash script.

So how are you keeping busy right now? There were rumors that you were working on a potential script for The Flash at one point.

MORRISON: Yeah, I mean, Ezra [Miller] and I wrote that last year, but it kind of you know what it’s like? It was just one of those things we all… Well, I thought we had a really good version of The Flash. We wrote it as fast as The Flash, because it was so demanding and it was pretty good. I think after a few drafts, it would have been great. But the way some studios work, these things just come and go. I think about 15 people have already written versions of The Flash. But it doesn’t seem to be going ahead now, but not with the version that we did. I had fun. Ezra came over to the house and we just had a real blast and created the story. And maybe one day the script will leak out into the world.

I mean, this came up amongst my coworkers and we all agree that we want to read it.

MORRISON: Yeah, it was pretty good. I mean, I don’t know what they’re doing with it. But it was pretty good. And it was a very different kind of superhero thing. It was more like Back to the Future, I would say, than a superhero movie, yeah.

One article I found teased it as being slightly darker.

MORRISON: No, it wasn’t really. I mean, the elements of darkness that were there and the material that they wanted us to use, they can flash point stuff. So, when I would sit down with Ezra and I were actually trying to do something that was a bit more… Like I say, it’s kind of like just a great science fiction story. And if you don’t know, but it would have made sense. But I have to say, I mean, I don’t want to talk about that, because somebody else has done their own work on it and I’m sure it will be great. And maybe, as I say this will leak out one day and people can judge.

For the full interview, check out Collider! What did you think of Brave New World? You can find my review for the Peacock show here.

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Tia Fabi

A girl with too many fandoms to count.