Foundation’s showrunner Goyer talks about the emotional core of the series

The first two episodes for Apple TV’s splashy new series, Foundation—based on the seminal science fiction works by Isaac Asimov, produced by Skydance Television— dropped on Friday. Culturess spoke with showrunner and Executive Producer, David S. Goyer, in a Zoom press interview, about the many challenges of bringing such a high-profile project to the screen.

Transposing Asimov’s Foundation for the streaming environment has been nearly eighty years in the making. A Hugo Award winner for Best of All-Time Series, Foundation’s influence can be felt throughout the science fiction genre. Asimov’s epochal works first began as a series of sci fi magazine short stories in 1942, developing into a series of seven volumes beginning with the first story, published in 1951, with subsequent volumes spanning decades up until 1993.

“No one had ever attempted with science fiction what Asimov did with Foundation,” said Goyer, according to the production notes provided to press by Apple TV.

Like the Lord of the Rings series, there has been a passion to translate Foundation to a visual platform, with many attempts over the years, including the show runner, Goyer himself, who initially turned it down not once, but twice, before taking up the mantle. A major movie-making influence, Goyer—known for the Batman movies The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, Man of Steel, the Blade franchises, and the upcoming Sandman series—felt that the time was ripe to tell this thrilling tale and give it the on-screen treatment it merited.

“I know, there have been many, many attempts to adapt Foundation. In the past, I myself was offered the opportunity to adapt it twice before in my career, as a feature, twice before I turned it down,” said Goyer during our interview.

In fact, he was working with James Cameron, who told him the task was virtually impossible, but felt confidence in his writing partner to bring the difficult project to cross the finish line.

"“I was working at Skydance in the Terminator: Dark Fate story room with James Cameron when David Ellison walked in saying he heard the rights for Foundation are in play and asked if I’d be interested. I remember James Cameron just looked at me and said, ‘That one’s hard,’” explained Goyer in the production notes."

“They needed an answer soon so I took the night to think about it. After talking with my wife, I called Josh Friedman and surprised him by asking if he wanted to write the pilot with me, because I believe in not surrounding myself with people who think exactly like me. Josh is an exquisite writer, but we have very different sensibilities. There’s a little bit of Lennon and McCartney with us, and I think the combination of our voices is what led to some magic of the show.”

The visualizing process included re-imagining some key characters for a modern audience, notably protagonists Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin as two black women. Both women, Lou Llobell (Dornick) and Leah Harvey (Hardin) serve as pivotal strengths for the series.

For the series to be a success, it was important to obtain approval from the Asimov estate. Fortunately for David S. Goyer, the author’s daughter, Robyn Asimov, came on board early to champion the production.

"“This time, I think justifiably, Robyn and the estate, were a bit gun-shy, because there have been so many attempts. So I had to present my basic concept, and that also involved gender-flipping Gaal and Salvor, and Robyn Asimov was very supportive of that. And she felt that her father would have been very supportive of that.“And then I sent her the first two episodes, and she was, again, very supportive of them… It’s important to me to know that Robyn and the Asimov estate are behind this sort of creative changes that we’ve made.”"

Goyer’s approach to the scope of characters and revered intergalactic political dialogue was to focus on the central themes incorporated throughout Foundation, including time, space, philosophy, politics, religion, science, and love. Additionally, he zeroed in on one particular theme to tether his series, family, something that made the series a very personal one for the showrunner.

"“About eight years ago, my father was dying of a terminal illness. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade, and he asked if I would come see him. I went and we talked about my childhood. He apologized for not being the best father and asked if there was anything he had done right. I said, ‘Yeah…you introduced me to science fiction. You introduced me to Tolkien, to Edgar Rice Burroughs, to Isaac Asimov,” explained Goyer in the production notes. “You instilled in me a love for science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve gone on to build a career around that.’”"

“One of the last things my father ever said to me was, ‘Foundation…do you think you’ll ever make it?’ I told him that I didn’t have the rights at that time, but that if they ever came my way again, I’d seriously consider it. About four years later, they did come my way again, for the third time. And I thought, ‘Well, I guess I’m going to have to do it this time.’”

One of the major challenges in brining the novels to life was pulling out action to drive the storyline forward for contemporary audiences. The difference between the books and watching the action-packed—albeit beautiful—TV adaptation is almost shocking. Goyer elaborated in our interview.

“I think that anyone who’s read the books knows, particularly 70 years after they’ve been written, that it would be virtually impossible to do a straight, line-for-line adaptation of the books. And even Asimov himself had said that.

“You know, one of my crew members said that the books are a lot of guys sitting around in rooms, smoking space tobacco [laughs], talking about ideas. Amazing ideas.

“You know, it’s funny, there is action that is mentioned in the books, but most of it happens off screen. The sack of Trantor, the fall of the Empire literally happens in between chapters… I knew that we would have to dramatize some of that action, but more importantly, that we would have to dramatize the emotion and the relationships between the two.

"“And so, for me, I was primarily focused on emotion and character, and figuring out ways that I could create characters or expand upon characters that were living and breathing embodiments of the ideas and the concepts that Asimov was talking about in the books.”"

Foundation sets a high bar for Apple TV and the production quality reflects the kind of investment the platform has doled out for the ambitious series. The first season illustrates a vast, expansive universe of diverse worlds and communities. It was filmed on locations in Ireland, Iceland, Malta, the Canary Islands, among many. Among the six directors of the 10 episodes, Goyer closes out the season finale and talked with me about the experience of concluding the first season of such an important adaptation.

“The last episode [pause]. It was interesting because I ended up directing the last episode in four different countries, spread out over the course of six different months. So the important thing for me was just making sure that we land the plane in terms of the emotion.

“I was able to talk to the actors at every moment and say, even though we filmed the first part of this scene, six months ago in another country, here’s where you are right now, here’s what’s happening. And I’m hoping the audience feels that we pulled that off.”

You can check out the full interview below:

The first two episodes of Foundation dropped on Sept. 24 on Apple TV. The remaining eight episodes will drop on Fridays, with E3 on Fri, Oct. 1.