If you’re looking for the next solid story and character-driven series, look no further than Paramount+’s espionage thriller, Rabbit Hole. Not only is it packed with action and stars like Kiefer Sutherland and Charles Dance, but the creators and showrunners, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, mapped their show out with more for more seasons to come. With plot points and Easter eggs in mind, the duo behind Bad Santa sat down with Collider’s Steve Weintraub to discuss their intention with the series going forward, and the concrete plans they have for these characters.

In Rabbit Hole, John Weir (Sutherland) is an expert in manipulation, dealing specifically in corporate espionage and aiding companies in muddying the reputations of their competitors. When the target of one of Weir’s gigs winds up murdered, he finds himself at the center of a struggle to preserve democracy, and mysterious, string-pulling powers frame him for the crime. In the fight for his innocence, Weir must take on an invisible enemy that is, essentially, everywhere.
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Before Rabbit Hole premiered on Paramount+, writers and directors Ficarra and Requa discuss their plans for the series, which they tell us is intended to be multi-seasonal, branching off with other characters and even diving into the past. The duo talk about the research that went into this espionage thriller, citing influences like David Fincher and real companies that inspired the material, and explain how Rabbit Hole is more than a passive television show, but an “engaging” and interactive puzzle. They also share stories from the production of Bad Santa with Mickey Rooney and the Coen brothers. For all of this and more, check out the interview in the player above, or you can read the full transcript below.

COLLIDER: I got a lot of questions, so let’s try to get through it. How did you decide on eight episodes, was that you guys or the studio?

GLENN FICARRA: It was us, and it was actually kind of arbitrary. We threw it out there, and thank God we didn’t throw out 10 because we probably would have died.

Image via Paramount+

I saw four of the eight episodes already. I believe you wrote and directed the four that I saw. Did you do the whole season?

JOHN REQUA: We did half the season.

So the four that I saw?

REQUA: Yeah, but we were the showrunners so we were involved in all of it, but we did the first three that you saw and then the last one of the season. So we did 1, 2, 3, and 8.

When you were going in to pitch and present the network on doing this, how much did they want to know, “Do you have a multiple-season plan?” and how much was it like, “Let’s just make a good first season, then we’ll talk later.”?

FICARRA: They were really great about just trusting us. We had to figure out the whole season just to write the first episode, which we expect to sell, so we pitched that immediately out the bat and asked for the order. So, we were asked if we thought it was a multi-season show and we said, “Yeah, absolutely,” because it’s sort of a creation myth of a bunch of characters that are going to go on to do other things, but we’ll always also be looking at the past. So I think we have no shortage of real estate.

So one of the things about the series is that it keeps the audience on its toes because you’re not sure who is on whose side. Can you talk about when and where you wanted to release information about characters over the course of the eight episodes, and how did that possibly change as a result in the editing room?”

REQUA: It didn’t change in the editing room. We wrote all eight of the scripts before we shot anything, so we knew what the story was going to be and we really have to stick to what we planned to do. We said, when we sold the show, like, “We want to do all eight, we want to pick up for all eight or we’re not gonna do the show,” because we were just like, “This is not the kind of show you can write one and then write another and write another.” The audience would be furious because things wouldn’t tie together.

So, we want the whole season, we want to write the whole season, and we want to plant Easter eggs and plot lines and characters that– we’ll be following storylines and characters that won’t pay off until Episode 8, and we want the audience to be able to go like, “Oh, okay. Well, that’s what that was. That was like aggravating me all season long, and now I know that’s what this is,” you know? And to have that sort of fun puzzle quality to the show for the audience, we just wanted to bring them in, and we want people to put their phones down and pay attention and have a one-screen experience.

Image via Paramount+

The show depicts private espionage, and I’m curious, how much do you think what you’re showing on the series is actually happening in real life?

FICARRA: We researched. [There are] a couple of firms on Wall Street – I’m not gonna say they do exactly what John Weir does, we definitely took liberties, but they do do intel and disinformation as a consultancy. You know, they’ll run research, oppo research–

REQUA: The name of one of the firms is called Muddy Waters. I mean, they’re not hiding, they’re not shy about it. They go and they just muddy the water and they create questions about stocks, and yeah, this is real. I mean, that’s real.

And then, as the show goes along, you get into the real espionage about the government and corporations hacking into our data, and that’s all shockingly real. I mean, we had to turn it up because you want to dramatize it. You’re turning it up, but it’s just the truth.

Yeah, I try explaining to people that anything that you put in an email, anything you text, anything you do online, any credit card you use, as you depict in the show, they’re forming a profile on you and they know everything about you before you probably even realize you’re going to do it.

FICARRA: Even if your data is so-called secure or private, as much as that can be done. That data that Cambridge Analytica used was private. It was for educational purposes, and it was taken and used to form profiles and research and strategy. Privacy is… it’s more of a handshake, you know?

Completely. Also, let’s be honest, if you use a credit card, everything you’re buying is being tracked, so you’re just giving it all up there. In this day and age, there’s a lot of television out there and a lot of options for people on what to watch. I usually don’t ask this, but I’m gonna ask you guys, what is it about the series that you want to tell people, “This is why you should watch the show.”?

FICARRA: I think it’s just really engaging and fun, and trying to figure it out is part of the fun. And John was saying, on the one-screen experience, a lot of shows you can kind of listen to while you’re doing something else, and that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that, but we really wanted to do a show where you gotta like… You know, it’s a puzzle, have fun with it.

REQUA: Yeah, we wanted to engage the audience. We didn’t want to insult their intelligence. We wanted to have a show that’s full of hidden truths and surprises that they can either get ahead of or miss it and join us in that game. It’s a game, and David Fincher’s The Game was a big influence on this.

The Game is – let me figure out the right word – it’s kind of amazing.

FICARRA: It’s awesome.

REQUA: I mean, it just holds up. That’s the thing that’s amazing, it’s as good as it ever was.

Image via PolyGram Films

I’ve said this a number of times, I’ll say it to you guys, I think every Fincher release should be a national holiday.

FICARRA: I agree.

He is phenomenal.

FICARRA: He puts great care into it, it shows…

REQUA: It is amazing, and he doesn’t insult his audience. He thinks they’re intelligent and he tells smart stories.

Phenomenal filmmaker. Before I run out of time with the two of you, I think you probably know what’s coming now. You guys worked on what we call Bad Santa, which, as you know, I saw the original cut way back when, and lost my mind watching that first cut. You mentioned yesterday when we were talking – and I had no idea – that Mickey Rooney auditioned for the movie.

FICARRA: Yeah, he auditioned to play Marcus the Elf. There is a videotape that Terry Zwigoff has–

REQUA: We’re doing another project, we’re going on the town with Terry. We’re gonna do another project with Terry, this amazing series that he wrote about record collecting, and about shellac records, and it’s amazing. We’re gonna go out on the town with that now.

We want to talk about this because we want Terry to dig into his closet because there’s a VHS of Mickey Rooney auditioning as Marcus. Because the whole thing is that Mickey Rooney, he’d be doing the scenes and you know the profanity was, at the time, the most F words in any movie, and Mickey Rooney would be doing the scene and the time would come up for him to say “fuck.” He would just go and pause, and then he would go on and then another, like a “shit,” he paused and he would go on. And then Terry said to him, he said, “Mickey, why aren’t you saying the dialogue?” He goes, “There’s a lady present.”

FICARRA: [Laughs] “I’ll do it on the day.”

REQUA: “I’ll do it on the day, but for now I won’t because there’s a lady present.”

FICARRA: Because there won’t be any ladies on the set, I guess. Because he’s Old Hollywood.

Did he come close to getting the role, or no?

REQUA: No, no.

FICARRA: I don’t think he did. And my favorite thing, we showed up on one of the shooting days of Bad Santa and we saw Marcus, Tony Cox, and he’s African American and he had the little white Caucasian elf tips, and we were like, “Oh, we’re in good hands, this is a genius moment.”

REQUA: Oh, and by the way… what was the other great one? The Marcus story?

FICARRA: [Quietly] “I’m gonna stick my whole fist up your–?”

REQUA: [Laughs] No, no, no, no, no. Oh! When Joel and Ethan [Coen] were pitching us the idea, we’re at the dinner with Joel and Ethan, and they said, “We have this idea for a movie called Bad Santa. He drinks beer and stuff.” That was the pitch. And then we said, “Okay, well, we have this Donald Westlake shit that we’re obsessed with so we think we can turn Bad Santa into like a Donald Westlake movie.”

Then during dinner we were drinking wine and having a good time, and they started telling stories about the little person who was on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and he was like a complete dick. He talk to the producer, he was like, “Why do you put me on the 25th floor? I can’t reach the 25th button in that elevator.” You know, he was just like a complete dick. And we’re like, “Well, that’s going in the movie.”

Rabbit Hole premieres on Paramount+ on March 26.