The first two episodes of Paramount+'s new spy thriller series Rabbit Hole are now streaming and ahead of the premiere, we were able to sit down with creators and directors Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love; Focus) to get all the insight into one of the more exciting new shows of 2023.
Kiefer Sutherland (24; Designated Survivor) headlines the espionage series as John Weir, a corporate spy that is framed for murder by a world-controlling power. With his resources lacking, he'll need to use every trick in the book to get to the bottom of this before he ends up six feet under.
Since Rabbit Hole is full of twists and turns that you'll have to see firsthand to believe, we didn't delve too deep into spoiler territory, but Ficarra and Requa were more than kind enough to share insight into how the series came to be, the impact of social media, and how New York City plays a critical role.
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ROHAN: I think pretty much everyone has that spy movie in their head, but you made yours into a reality with this show. Where did you come up with the concept? Or how did this show just come to be?
GLENN: It kind of from just what's going on in the world, a lot of conspiracy theories and stuff and misinformation fueled by sort of social media. It kind of put us in that headspace, it really reminded us of what the world was sort of like in the 70s when we were kids, and there was a lot of distrust in the government and in institutions. And you felt like everybody was lying. So, it kind of inspired this spy thriller, like you would see in the 70s.
ROHAN: Speaking of conspiracies, the show only begins to roughly touch on the impact of social media in episode four. Will the impact of social media and technology begin to play a larger role in the last four episodes?
JOHN: It increases in importance, and it becomes a big part of the story, because, ultimately, what we're talking about in this show is how exposed we are in our online world and how it makes us vulnerable. And so, increasingly, that becomes part of the story as we go forward.
GLENN: Yeah, and it really sort of highlights how powerful tech can be in purveying disinformation, especially as opposed to like the 70s. It's like, well, you could plant a story, or you could drop some leaflets, there wasn't a lot of ways to reach a mass audience and hit a critical mass, which would be the equivalent then of going viral. If you think about how long it took to break the Watergate story, it was a kind of effort that took years of reporting. Whereas for relatively little money, you can buy likes on Facebook and get something trending and get far more eyes on it than ever before. So, that factors in pretty heavily in the latter half, in kind of controlling the narrative within the narrative.
ROHAN: Kiefer is obviously a big star, but I think something that really helps the show is that it's set in New York. Can you tell me more about picking that as a setting and recreating it for the show?
JOHN: Well, we always knew that New York was a character in this show, in this season, at least. And so we couldn't afford to shoot in New York, so we went to Toronto, but we had to go location scouting in Toronto for a couple of days, just to make sure we could pull it off, because we both lived in New York. We know New York well, and we have also learned how to fake things pretty well, with subtle digital effects and things like that. So, after visiting, we realized we could do it, but it was very important. I mean, obviously he's a corporate espionage guy. That can't be in any other city.
GLENN: Yeah, I mean, if we could have afforded to shoot in New York, we would have.
In RABBIT HOLE, nothing is what it seems when John Weir, a master of deception in the world of corporate espionage, is framed for murder by powerful forces with the ability to influence and control populations.