New Netflix spy thriller The Night Agent has been storming up the streamer’s viewing charts, becoming one of its biggest English-language debuts ever. However, according to a new Deadline report, the series almost ended up elsewhere.
It was created by The Shield’s Shawn Ryan, who originally wrote the pilot for the series based on Matthew Quirk’s novel two years ago. His initial pitch featured both the main Rose and Peter storyline, as well as introducing a subplot involving the Vice President’s daughter.
Two studios were interested in the initial idea: NBCUniversal who wanted to commission a pilot and Netflix which came back with some story tweaks. The streamer shared some notes suggesting they would be interested if Ryan moved the Vice President storyline later in the season (viewers will know it now appears in episode 3).
The creator decided to rewrite the pilot with the hope it would be commissioned to a season more quickly. "I think the changes to address Netflix’s notes ultimately made it a better pilot," Ryan told Deadline.
"It was hard because I would have loved making the show for Lisa [Katz, President, Scripted Content at NBCUniversal] and NBCU, but I’d always from the start felt like the show could really succeed at Netflix, that they didn’t have anything like it, and when the revised script won them over it felt like the right place to go to."
It seems like the gamble paid off too, with the show already recording 168.71 million hours viewed in its first week on the streamer. "I’m still getting my head around it," Ryan added to Deadline of the news. "I’ve had a long career and certainly some success stories, but nothing quite like this in terms of intense, immediate fan reaction. Almost doesn’t feel real."
