You know what's funny about the people who say mean things? There's a certain part of Twitter that is literally shouting into the void, and then sometimes when the void shouts back it's like, "Whoa! I wasn't expecting that. I got called out." And then if you have a conversation, you find out they like something or they like that or they have questions about that.
Alfred GoughMiles and I had been looking to do a martial arts show for some time. Our first two movies that we wrote were "Lethal Weapon 4" and "Shanghai Noon" with Jackie Chan. Then we sort of got pulled into the superhero world, but then you look around at what's not on television and there wasn't really a martial arts shows. There are shows that do martial arts to a degree, but there's not a martial arts show.
Alfred GoughTo AMC's credit, I think what they saw was the show doesn't exist in the marketplace. They knew that there was a hunger for a martial arts show. They also knew that you have this strong tradition of martial arts cinema, so even though it's not branded by a novel or a comic book or an old movie or something, we do have the genre itself, which people love.
Alfred GoughAnd having those mystical elements you see in Asian cinema and certainly Asian martial arts cinema, it's something that we wanted to begin to introduce - the idea of spirituality and the idea of there being something else out in the world besides people who are great fighters.
Alfred GoughAs a network, they're not the network that usually picks things up after the first episode airs. They definitely have a methodology that they follow. But they're very happy with the show [Into the Badlands]and they're very excited with how it's performed.
Alfred GoughWhenever you do something that's original, not based on a comic book or a novel or an old movie or a franchise, you definitely learn a lot and for I think it was very gratifying to see the people embrace the world.
Alfred GoughSo the idea was that, some catastrophic event had happened. There was a long dark age and then out of that, 100 years ago in this world, seven barons - these men and women - rose up and formed the new society. It's a feudal world, a part feudal barons and part warlord and part mob boss and they each control a huge resource so that there's an uneasy alliance, but they all need each other.
Alfred Gough