Excited for a New Season of ‘Justified’? You Have Quentin Tarantino and ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ to Thank
The upcoming season of FX’s “Justified” comes with not only a new location (Detroit) but a new title: “Justified: City Primeval.” The name comes from a 1980 novel by Elmore Leonard, the author whose Raylan Givens character from “Riding the Rap,” “Fire in the Hole,” and others inspired the original iteration of “Justified” when it premiered in 2010. Yet “City Primeval” is not a Raylan Givens book — so how did it wind up as source material for a season of “Justified?”
According to co-showrunner Michael Dinner, who directed three of the new season’s eight episodes, the initial intention was not to create a mash-up of “City Primeval” and “Justified” but to create a straight adaptation of “City Primeval.” “We had finished with ‘Justified,’ and some years later I got a call from Elmore’s estate,” Dinner told IndieWire. “His son said, ‘Are you familiar with ‘City Primeval?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ He said, ‘Well, would you have an interest in turning it into a show?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.'”
Dinner, a key creative force behind the original six seasons of “Justified,” knew of the novel’s storied past in the annals of Hollywood filmmaking. Sam Peckinpah tried to make “City Primeval” in the early ’80s from a script by Leonard himself, and it was one of many Leonard novels Quentin Tarantino flirted with before transforming “Rum Punch” into “Jackie Brown.” Dinner was developing the book as its own show when he got a call from “Justified” star Timothy Olyphant, then filming “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” with Tarantino. They were discussing “City Primeval” and agreed that it would make a great season of “Justified.”
Dinner thought the idea was interesting, but due to a complicated rights situation, it looked unlikely. A year after Tarantino and Olyphant first hatched the idea, Dinner signed an exclusive deal with FX that revived the notion. “They said, ‘What are you thinking about doing?’ And I said, ‘Are you familiar with “City Primeval”?’ They said, ‘Yeah, Tim pitched that to us a year ago.’ I said, ‘Well, let me pitch it to you as its own thing, and you tell me if you want to do it as its own thing or as a season of “Justified.”‘”
FX loved the pitch and decided that they would indeed adapt “City Primeval” as a season of “Justified,” which created both an opportunity and a challenge for Dinner. “We were a little worried about it, to tell you the truth,” Dinner said. “[The book] was a kind of crown jewel, and we didn’t want to do a disservice to it.” Dinner and co-showrunner Dave Andron settled on what Dinner described as a “mash-up” approach: “We catapulted Raylan into this story and let it evolve.”
The result is pure delight for Elmore Leonard fans, as Dinner and Andron retain the spirit — and, most importantly, the terrifying bad guy, Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook) — of “City Primeval” while also taking Raylan Givens in new directions. “This is kind of the second act,” Dinner said. “We have a character who’s in a different place in his life. The road in front of him is a lot shorter than the road behind him.” So if this is the second act, does that mean there will be a third? “We’ll see if the audience responds to this, and then FX will have a decision to make. I know Tim would love to do it. Dave Andron would love to do it. I’d love to see where Raylan ends up. That would make me very, very happy.”