Aaron Koontz on Adapting Revival: A Horror Series Rooted in Reality

Aaron Koontz never expected to become a showrunner, but when director Luke Boyce approached him with Tim Seeley’s acclaimed comic series Revival, something clicked immediately. “I read the first issue and I was like, full stop. This is a pilot,” Koontz recalls. “This is amazing. There is such a hook here – a murder mystery where the person is still alive.”

The creator behind horror films like The Pale Door found himself drawn into television through what he describes as a natural evolution. “I became a director to protect my writing and became a producer to protect my directing. So it all starts with the page for me in every way.” For Koontz, television represented the ultimate writer’s medium, where showrunners and writers truly drive the narrative.

Koontz’s path to Revival wasn’t traditional. As a producer who had made over 20 feature films, he was looking for something more personal to write and direct when Boyce brought him the project. “When Luke brought this to me, I was like, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he remembers. But reading that first issue changed everything.

Revival presented a unique challenge. It’s explicitly not a zombie story, despite dealing with the recently deceased returning to life. “I didn’t want to make a zombie movie because I’m like, what else can I really do?” Koontz explains. Instead, he saw something more nuanced: “The parallels and metaphors of like someone coming back and they’re the same, but they’re different. What does that do to people in a small town?”

The Revival TV series, which Koontz describes as “Mare of Easttown meets Fargo with a supernatural twist,” focuses on grounding supernatural elements in authentic human drama. Rather than spectacle, the show emphasizes character and community reaction. “Your neighbor is good until you realize that they’re an immigrant and it’s scary. And then this thing comes in,” he notes, drawing parallels to contemporary social tensions.

From Horror Comic to TV Adaptation

Working with 47 issues of source material, Koontz and his team made strategic choices about what to adapt and what to reimagine. “I could feel times where it kind of meandered from what I thought was like a core storyline,” he says of the comic. “Let’s just pare this down. Focus on the murder mystery, focus on the Cypress family, focus on Dana (Melanie Scrofano) and Wayne (David James Elliott).”

The adaptation process involved creating detailed beat sheets mapping the comic’s storylines, then strategically pulling elements for different purposes. “We’re going to really kind of condense a lot of this into season one. But then we’re going to pull storylines out that we can then play and run off on side quests in the future.”

Aaron Koont

Some comic elements – like an “Amish ninja” storyline — were deliberately saved for potential future seasons. “That’s hilarious and awesome. But I was trying to kind of ground us into something more of a linear path,” Koontz explains. The goal was establishing audience trust before pushing into wilder territory.

Coming from feature film production, Koontz brought an unusually organized approach to television. “That was the most organized first day of a writer’s room I’ve ever had in my entire life,” veteran writer Noelle Carbone told him after their first session. His systematic approach even surprised the creators of Writer’s Room Pro software, who discovered he was the only user utilizing certain organizational features.

This attention to detail stems from Koontz’s producing background, where he specialized in maximizing limited budgets. “We became the company that could figure those out,” he says of taking $5 million scripts and making them work for $2 million. “I take a lot of pride in our ability to put dollars on the screen.”

The collaborative aspect proved crucial to the show’s development. “You want to empower everyone around you so that the best idea wins,” Koontz emphasizes. “But if they don’t create or foster a community and an environment where people feel comfortable to bring those ideas up, then we don’t know what the best idea was.”

Grounding Genre in Reality

Despite his love for horror and genre filmmaking, Koontz approached Revival with restraint. The show builds slowly, using familiar procedural elements before escalating into stranger territory. “I wanted to ground you into something that feels a little familiar. It has sprinkles of genre because people have come back and we’ve got some stuff. But then it gets crazier as we go.”

Regional authenticity played a key role in this grounding. Set in Wausau, Wisconsin – creator Tim Seeley’s hometown – the show draws from real experiences and local character types. “A lot of them are like, that’s my cousin. That was my neighbor. That’s my grandma,” Koontz notes. Even seemingly outlandish elements like the horse case have roots in actual incidents.

For aspiring writers and directors, Koontz emphasizes the importance of understanding production realities. “Writing within the limitations, these limitations do breed creativity,” he argues. Understanding character counts, location logistics, and budget constraints isn’t limiting – it’s liberating.

“Is this the most vital way to tell this story? It might be the coolest way, but from a production standpoint, that’s going to kill us.” This practical approach, learned through years of feature production, helps writers create more viable projects. Koontz also advocates for writers spending time on sets, regardless of whether they’re paid to be there. “Even if they say, look, we can’t pay to send you on set, whatever, just go, go to set, spend the day, put the headphones on.”

Looking ahead, Koontz has mapped out several seasons of Revival stories, balancing adaptation with original material. “The chain breaks, the link breaks and everything falls apart,” he reflects on his leadership. “I’m on set shaking everyone’s hand. I’m talking to everyone and making sure they understand that I appreciate them.” For Koontz, successful adaptation isn’t just about translating source material, it’s about building the creative community that can bring those stories to life.

This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here. 

by Brock Swinson

Freelance writer and author Brock Swinson hosts the podcast and YouTube series, Creative Principles, which features audio interviews from screenwriters, actors, and directors. Swinson has curated the combined advice from 200+ interviews for his debut non-fiction book 'Ink by the Barrel' which provides advice for those seeking a career as a prolific writer.

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