Netflix has found its next major video game adaptation in Splinter Cell: Death Guard. After their first successes with the animated adaptation of Castlevaniathe streamer has been gradually growing its slate of game adaptations, including the follow-up to the previous show, Nocturnalas well as Carmen Sandiego, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and the Emmy winner Esoteric.
Created by John Wick The mastermind Derek Kolstad, Splinter Cell: Death Guard takes place a few years after the previous game, that of 2013 Blacklistin which Sam Fisher no longer works for the Fourth Echelon, living an isolated life on a farm in Poland. When new agent, Zinnia McKenna, whose mission goes awry and flees a group of ruthless mercenaries, Sam is contacted by an old friend to help him, bringing him back to the life he left behind.
Liev Schreiber conducts the ensemble Splinter Cell: Death Guard as Sam Fisher, succeeding game actor Michael Ironside, alongside Janet Varney as Anna “Grim” Grímsdóttir, succeeding Claudia Besso, The Sandmanis Kirby as Zinnia, Joel Oulette and Kari Wahlgren. Although telling an original story, the series features some key elements from the games, including a recreation of a major character. Chaos theory event.
In honor of the show’s premiere, ScreenRant interviewed Derek Kolstad to discuss Splinter Cell: Death Guard. The creator spoke about his desire to stay true to the world of Tom Clancy-endorsed games, as well as kicking off a new era for the franchise with a new set of characters and his thoughts on where the games will take place. John Wick the franchise should then disappear.
Kolstad owes “a lot” to Tom Clancy since his childhood
Sam Fisher pointing a gun while bleeding in Splinter Cell: Deathwatch
ScreenRant: You’ve now built a reputation for reinventing icons from John Wick to Nobody. And now, Sam Fisher, what excited you most about bringing Cell burst in animation for the first time?
Derek Kolstad: Well, when I was a kid in the ’80s, I owe a lot to Tom Clancy because when my aunts and uncles were reading his books, I was reading Alistair MacLean and Dashiell Hammett and a lot of those dog-eared paperbacks with yellow pages that you found at yard sales. UNCLE’S MAN I loved all that stuff. And Tom Clancy was a big influence on me, as someone who loves that kind of story. I played the games, I think the first one came out either in college, and I was bad at them, because I came from a shooter. In Sam’s world, if you walk into a room and start shooting, you either die or fail. The only other game like this before I played it was Thief on PC. It was just a refreshing change of pace. So hearing Sam Fisher, hearing Splinter Cell, actually playing in Tom Clancy’s world in a creative way, it was like, “Yes.”
New Deathwatch Characters Kick Off a New Splinter Cell Era
ScreenRant: By now, fans know that Grim is Sam’s trusted technical officer in the games, but McKenna and Thunder are brand new additions to the team. What was important in creating these original characters for Death Watch to help expand Sam’s world now?
Derek Kolstad: Well, Thunder went through so many iterations, but we loved it. He brought an innocence almost surprisingly devoid of naivety, because he came from a different place than everyone else, even as a child. And then what we wanted to show was McKenna as sort of a window into Sam’s past, because, in many ways, she is who Sam was. We always joke about how people play games. You have McKenna, who kills everyone, blows everything up, discovers all the secrets in the room, and then you have Sam, who just does the mission. “I don’t need to kill that guy over there, so I’ll go here.”
What I loved about them is that they are connected to the hip, feel and appeal of the game. And yet, they are unique in their own right. In a lot of ways – I compare this because of my love of it – with Bond you have M and Felix Leiter and Q and all these interesting characters that at some point you might say, “I want to see a series with M in 1972.” It’s great. Felix Leiter during the Cuban crisis of the 50s, brilliant. And then when you look at Thunder and McKenna, and the new blood, the new wave, where are they in 10 years? It’s intriguing. I say that phrase too much, everything I do is a love letter to something I loved as a kid, and Thunder and McKenna were just based on people in our lives and on-screen characters that we really dug.
Kirby’s Zinnia standing in a large room with her silenced gun and night vision goggles in Splinter Cell: Deathwatch
By the way, McKenna was a joke to me. If you try to play the game [by going in and shooting everyone]you lose, right? But McKenna is so good, and what I love about this movie is, I love those movies where the guy shoots a machine gun and doesn’t hit anyone, and there’s this old guy in the back going “Pop. Pop.” And that was really it, because the other thing we talked about a lot, and we watched this movie, Wyatt Earp, where he wasn’t a quick draw.
It was very interesting, very long, but it’s fun to watch, and it was just like, “Look, it’s Doc Holliday, it’s Wyatt Earp, both together. Oh yeah, they’re very different. But in the end, it’s not necessarily a Yin and a Yang, but, ‘I support you.’ The classic: “I’ll be your wingman.” » »And I’m a big fan of father-daughter, father-son motifs, and I think we had that there too. But he never speaks down on her. He never considers her anything other than equal. And I think that surprises her, because on the field, if you don’t respect both sides of who’s behind you and in front of you, you’re going to die.
ScreenRant: The music in this show is incredible. I even downloaded one of these songs. I don’t know if you’re responsible for this, but the song [“SOS” by Timothy Fleet & Wayne Murray]when McKenna remembers while she was jogging, I love that sequence because she was hit so hard emotionally when she thought she saw the face. Did you choose the music for this show?
Derek Kolstad: It’s funny, it’s like writing action sequences. There were suggestions in the script that we would choose from time to time, but ultimately, because of licensing, you leave it up to the music gods that are out there, and they did their job, then man. So I don’t take any credit and I give all the credit where credit is due, man.
Kolstad hopes John Wick 5 will bring up a ‘familiar face you were destined to hate’
Keanu Reeves as John Wick holding a big gun
ScreenRant: I have an off-topic question, because one of the few pieces of information we know John Wick: Chapter 5 is that The High Table won’t return as the central antagonist, but fans are already speculating that John might be forced to work with them now after years of fighting against them. This might be fascinating and somewhat surprising, but as someone who helped build this world, do you think there’s storyline potential for John reluctantly aligning himself with The High Table, or is the franchise stronger by leaving this chapter closed?
Derek Kolstad: I think it’s interesting, when you look at our favorite movies, first you have good guys and bad guys, and then I remember watching Return of the Jedi in the theater, and when Darth Vader rises and catches the Emperor, I didn’t know when I was 11 that his story could do that. And every kid with me, we lost our shit, just in kind of shock and awe like, “Wait a minute,” and then he throws them overboard, and you have this father-son moment.
I think in thrillers, and a lot of this comes from Le Carré, you may be the bad guy, but in many ways you’re on the other side of the fence. You watch our favorite movies, it’s you and me armed against each other at the end of the first act, and you and me at the beginning of the third act back to back against the worst. Ultimately, I hope this story plays out in such a way that there’s a familiar face that you were destined to hate and you’re like, “Wait a minute. Oh, okay, that makes sense. It’s us versus them, and they’re screwing them.” So that’s where the thinking goes, and I wish them nothing but love, man.
Splinter Cell: Death Guard is now available to stream on Netflix.
