Writer/producer/director Simon Kinberg has been able to play in some truly massive sandboxes over the course of his career, with the biggest perhaps being his time working on 20th Century Fox’s ‘X-Men’ universe. Recently, Kinberg has co-created his own universe in Apple TV+’s series, “Invasion,” which recently got picked up for a second season and is airing its first season finale on December 10. In this episode of The Discourse, Simon Kinberg talks about bringing that project to life.
“Invasion” is the sci-fi thriller series about, well, an alien invasion. However, unlike other projects that attempt to tell similar tales, the Apple TV+ series focuses on multiple perspectives from folks around the world, giving a more comprehensive look at what might actually happen if Earth is invaded by forces from space.
“The intention was to combine something really epic with something really intimate to really focus on the characters,” said Kinberg. “Having not worked in TV, it’s such a luxury to have ten hours of storytelling vs. having two hours of storytelling…It was this chance to tell the micro-moves of human life set against the macro-moves of an alien invasion.”
Of course, Inevitably, if one speaks with Simon Kinberg long enough, the subject of the X-Men have to come up and he was gracious enough to respond to how he’d want to see the X-Men join the Marvel Cinematic Universe when asked if he’d rather see his cast join via the established multiverse or see a complete reboot.
“Gosh, it’s hard for me to answer that truly, not in a sense of NDA’s and I’m going to get sniped through the window right now because there’s that too,” he explained. “But it’s hard because when you work with actors for so long, you have such an emotional connection to them, it’s not an objective connection to them, it’s a subjective connection to them.”
He added, “For me, ‘Days of Future Past‘ was like the dream – being able to unite both of those casts. I’d started with the original cast. I then continued with the ‘First Class‘ cast. So it’s hard for me to answer that because I love that cast, but, having said that, and this is not to dodge the question, it’s just the honest answer. I’m constantly surprised in a good way by what Kevin [Feige] and Marvel do with that universe and I’m constantly amazed by the innovations and the chances they take. So, I would say, I just trust whatever they do with the ‘X-Men’ universe is going to be surprising and original and innovative and wildly satisfying.”
Again, the season finale of “Invasion” debuts on December 10 on Apple TV+. In addition to listening to the full discussion with Simon Kinberg, you can also see an exclusive featurette about how the series designed its very unique aliens below:
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