Jon Bernthal has spent much of the last year quietly expanding beyond acting—first co-writing “The Punisher: One Last Kill,” then co-writing an episode of “The Bear.” Now that work is helping him finally move forward on “The Bottoms,” a TV series he has been trying to make for more than a decade and which is currently in active development at FX.
In a recent THR profile for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” Bernthal revealed that “The Bottoms” grew out of extensive time he spent in Shreveport, Louisiana. The project has had a long and somewhat tortured development history, including a previous incarnation at Amazon and a script from an unnamed high-profile writer that Bernthal ultimately rejected.
Several years ago, that writer was brought aboard to develop “The Bottoms,” but Bernthal felt he hadn’t sufficiently engaged with the Shreveport community that inspired the project. Unhappy with the resulting script, Bernthal said he went so far as to pay out the writer’s fee so he could retain control of the rights and write the series himself.
“My agents thought I was out of my mind, but I was like, ‘I want to do this on my own now,’” Bernthal said. “And that’s what I did.
That gamble appears to be paying off. “The Bottoms,” briefly set up at Amazon, Bernthal revealed, is now in active development at FX, and Bernthal’s recent screenwriting work seems to have helped get it there.
His first official writing credit came on “The Punisher: One Last Kill,” which Bernthal co-wrote with Reinaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard,” “We Own This City”). Only weeks later came “Gary,” the standalone “Bear” prequel episode that Bernthal co-wrote with Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who also stars alongside him.
Bernthal said the response to “Gary” changed the way executives were looking at him professionally. “They’re like, ‘OK, now we’re looking at you as a creator,’” he said.
That’s a fairly significant shift for an actor who has spent years describing himself as a “soldier for the story,” working with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Denis Villeneuve, James Mangold, Ava DuVernay, and Christopher Nolan. With “The Bottoms,” Bernthal has clearly been unwilling to hand over a project he has been nurturing for more than a decade simply to get it made.
There’s still a lot we don’t know. FX has not announced a cast, production timeline, or additional story details for “The Bottoms,” and THR describes the project only being back on its feet after years of limbo. But after a decade, a rejected script, an Amazon incarnation, and Bernthal taking over the writing himself, the project appears to have real life again. Hopefully more surfaces soon.
