Deathwatch Creator Talks Franchise's New Era

Netflix has found its next major video game adaptation in Splinter Cell: Deathwatch. After their early success with the animated adaptation of Castlevania, the streamer has steadily built out their roster of game adaptations, including the prior show’s follow-up, Nocturne, as well as Carmen Sandiego, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and the Emmy-winning Arcane.

Created by John Wick mastermind Derek Kolstad, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch is set some years after the prior game, 2013’s Blacklist, in which Sam Fisher is no longer working for the Fourth Echelon, living an isolated life on a farm in Poland. When newer agent, Zinnia McKenna, has a mission go awry and is on the run from a group of ruthless mercenaries, Sam is contacted by an old friend to help, pulling him back into the life he left behind.

Liev Schreiber leads the ensemble Splinter Cell: Deathwatch cast as Sam Fisher, taking over from game actor Michael Ironside, alongside Janet Varney as Anna “Grim” Grímsdóttir, taking over from Claudia Besso, The Sandman‘s Kirby as Zinnia, Joel Oulette and Kari Wahlgren. Though telling an original story, the series does feature some key elements from the games, including a recreation of a major Chaos Theory event.

In honor of the show’s premiere, ScreenRant interviewed Derek Kolstad to discuss Splinter Cell: Deathwatch. The creator talked about wanting to stay true to the world of the Tom Clancy-approved games, as well as launching a new era for the franchise with a new set of characters and his thoughts on where the John Wick franchise should go next.

Kolstad Owes Tom Clancy “A Great Deal” From His Childhood

ScreenRant: Now you’ve built a reputation for reinventing icons from John Wick to Nobody. And now, Sam Fisher, what excited you the most about bringing Splinter Cell into animation for the first time?

Derek Kolstad: Well, as a child in the ’80s, I owe Tom Clancy a great deal because when my uncles and aunts were reading his books, I was coming from reading Alistair MacLean and Dashiell Hammett and a lot of those dog-eared, yellow page paperbacks that you’d find at garage sales. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I loved all that kind of stuff. And Tom Clancy had a great influence on me just as someone who loves that kind of story. I played the games, I think the first one came out either in college-ish, and I was terrible at ’em, because I was coming from shooters. In Sam’s world, if you walk into a room and start shooting, you die, or you fail. The only other game like this before I played it was Thief on the PC. It was just a refreshing change of pace. So to hear Sam Fisher, to hear Splinter Cell, to actually play in the world of Tom Clancy creatively was just like, “Yes.”

Deathwatch’s New Characters Are Kickstarting A New Splinter Cell Era

ScreenRant: Now, fans know Grim is Sam’s trusted tech officer from the games, but McKenna and Thunder are brand-new additions to the team. What was important about creating these original characters for Deathwatch to help expand Sam’s world now?

Derek Kolstad: Well, Thunder went through so many iterations, but we loved him. He brought in an innocence that was almost surprisingly devoid of naivety, because he came from somewhere different than all of them, even as a kid. And then what we wanted to show McKenna as kind of a window into Sam’s past, because, in many respects, she is who Sam was. We always joke about the way that people play the games. You have McKenna, who goes in killing everybody, blowing everything up, finding every secret in the room, and then you have Sam, who just does the mission. “I don’t need to kill that guy over there, so I’m going to go over here.”

What I loved about them is they’re tied to the hip, to the feel and appeal of the game. And yet they’re unique in their own right. In many respects — I’m comparing this because of my love for it — with Bond, you have M and Felix Leiter and Q and all these interesting characters that, at a certain point, you could go, “I want to see a show with M in 1972.” That’s awesome. Felix Leiter during the Cuban crisis in the ’50s, great. And then when you look at Thunder and McKenna, and the new blood, new wave, where are they in 10 years? That’s intriguing. I say the phrase too much, everything I do is a love letter to something I loved as a kid, and Thunder and McKenna were just based on people in our lives and characters on screen that we just really dug.

Kirby’s Zinnia standing in a large room with her silenced pistol and night vision goggles in Splinter Cell: Deathwatch

McKenna was a joke on me, by the way. If you try playing the game [by going in and shooting everyone], you lose, right? But McKenna is so good, and what I do like about it, I love those movies where the guy shoots a machine gun and hits no one, and you have that one old guy in the back go, “Pop. Pop.” And it was really that, because the other thing we would talk about a great deal, and we watched that movie, Wyatt Earp, where he wasn’t a quick draw.

It was very interesting, very long, but it’s a cool one to watch, and it was just going like, “Look, he’s Doc Holliday, he’s Wyatt Earp, the two of them together. Oh yeah, they are very different. But come the end of it, it isn’t necessarily a Yin and Yang, but, ‘I got your back.’ The classic, ‘I’ll be your wingman.'” And I’m a big fan of father-daughter, father-son motifs, and I think we had that there, as well. But he never talks down to her. He never looks at her as anything more than equal. And I think that surprises her, because in the field, if you don’t respect both sides of who’s behind you and in front of you, you’re going to die.

ScreenRant: The music in this show is incredible. I even downloaded one of these songs. I don’t know if you’re responsible for that, but the song [“SOS” by Timothy Fleet & Wayne Murray], when McKenna’s remembering back while she’s doing the jog, I love that sequence because she was hit so emotionally hard when she thought she saw the face. Did you choose the music for this show?

Derek Kolstad: It’s funny, it’s like writing action sequences. There were suggestions in the script that we would choose from time to time, but ultimately, due to licensing, you leave it up to the music gods that be over there, and they did their job and then some man. So I’m taking no credit and giving all credit to where credit’s due, man.

Kolstad Hopes John Wick 5 Flips A “Familiar Face You Were Destined To Hate”

Keanu Reeves as John Wick holding a big gun

ScreenRant: I do have one off-topic question, because one of the few tidbits we know about John Wick: Chapter 5 is that The High Table won’t return as the central antagonist, but fans are already speculating that John could be forced to work with them now after years of fighting against them. This could be fascinating and somewhat of a twist, but as someone who’s helped build this world, do you think that there’s a storyline potential for John reluctantly aligning with The High Table, or is the franchise stronger leaving that chapter closed?

Derek Kolstad: I think it’s interesting is when you look at our favorite movies, you have good guys and bad guys at first, and then I remember watching Return of the Jedi in the theater, and when Darth Vader stands up and grabs the Emperor, I didn’t know as an 11-year-old kid that his story could do that. And every kid with me, we lost our s–t, just in kind of shock and awe like, “Wait a minute”, and then he throws ’em off the side, and you have that father-son moment.

I think in thrillers, and a lot of this is from le Carré, you might be the bad guy, but in many ways, you’re on the other side of that fence. You look at our favorite movies, it’s you and me with guns on each other at the end of the first act, and you and me at the beginning of the third act back to back against the worst. Ultimately, I hope this story goes in such a way where there’s a familiar face you were destined to hate that you’re like, “Wait a minute. Oh, okay, that makes sense. It’s us versus them, and them f–k them.” So that’s where the thinking goes, and I wish them nothing but love, man.

Splinter Cell: Deathwatch is now available to stream on Netflix.