Daybreak EP Aron Eli Coleite talks inspiration, fourth wall breaking and more

Daybreak EP Aron Eli Coleite talked to Netflix Life exclusively about the upcoming post-apocalypse series. Where did the inspiration come from?

If you thought Daybreak was 100% original, you’ll be wrong. But it does heavily adapt its source material in a way that makes it perfect for TV. During an exclusive interview with Aron Eli Coleite, the Daybreak showrunner talked about the original source material and the inspiration to turn it into the TV show that it has become.

Just how much has already been planned out and did going to Netflix in a bingeable format affect the storytelling? We discuss all that and more in this exclusive interview.

Netflix Life: I’ve got to start by asking about the inspiration behind Daybreak.

Aron Eli Coleite: I’m a big nerd. Brad Pitt, my co-creator and the director of the first two episodes, found the book and wrote a feature version of it. I was supposed to meet with Brad to discuss another comic book property altogether, but I wanted to talk about Daybreak. It was really uncool and a terrible thing to do in a meeting, but I just had to be honest.

The script had a lot more in common with Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead. And then Warm Bodies had just come out, so there was more geared towards the zombie apocalypse.

What really resonated with me was Josh at the center of this, who looked at the apocalypse like it was the best thing that ever happened to him and that he truly came alive after the world ended. I thought it was so unique, and that was how I felt in junior high and in high school. I was the kid who was like “Man, the greatest thing would be if the world ended, because I could do anything, I could see anything.”

I’m going to date myself, but there was also a movie that was played on HBO almost every single afternoon called Night of the Comet. The gist is this comet flies overhead and kills all the adults. Instead of the kids being mopey about putting society back together, they basically go to the mall and go shopping. It felt so real instead of so Lord of the Flies.

And it was an opportunity to go more Mad Max in tone, a place of wish fulfillment, of telling a coming-of-age story that had real resonance of what’s going on today. Surviving high school for me was like surviving the apocalypse.

A lot of us feel like, I certainly feel like, I haven’t gotten over high school, necessarily. I’m still that nerdy kid who is just looking for his friendship group and looking to figure out who I am. So, I felt like there’s a wonderful story to tell. It’s optimistic and it’s really fun. It has elements of danger and horror, but it has a redeeming storyline about finding the people that you need in your life because that’s how you do survive.

NL: Most shows, even adaptations, will tell a story from the third person POV or add narration over the top. You’ve completely broken the fourth wall. At what point did you know it had to be done that way?

Coleite: Well, comic books, the narrator breaks the fourth wall. We knew early on that Josh could not do the entire season. It would get a little bit boring and it felt small to me.

I don’t know if it’s my punk rebellious side, but I really don’t like rules, especially when people say “Oh, it has to be done this way. The audience craves consistency. They need the same every single episode and that’s how you sustain a TV show.” The second somebody tells me I can’t do something is when I want to do it.

I saw this opportunity to really destroy convention of consistency. I really do believe that every character is in their own movie. They have their own POV. They tell their story in their own way. We’re so wonderfully unique and different and this was an opportunity to be like, “why do we have to break the fourth wall every time?”

Just because Josh would do it because he thinks he’s in a John Hughes movie, Angelica wouldn’t do that. It doesn’t make sense for her. And we started hacking it from a character point of view. We started to really get into this whole notion of everybody is different, and we get to build this ridiculously fun sandbox that’s big enough to tell everybody’s stories.

It really energized me as a writer, because we didn’t have a lot of constraints put on us. We could do what we wanted, as long as it was true to the character. We could be as playful as we wanted to be. We didn’t have to follow rules of any kind, and it freed us up to have a good time.

NL: One thing I love is that Angelica starts her off with a sassy comment about thinking it was all going to be told from the cis white male perspective. You’ve got such a diverse cast and do things that other shows wouldn’t necessarily risk doing, like making Mona Lisa Turbo’s right-hand woman instead of a guy in that place. How important was it for you to remain diverse throughout?

Coleite: It’s extremely important. Nothing was done in this show by happenstance. Even from the construction of our writing team and crew, we have a really diverse writing staff. I knew it needs a diverse writing staff because I wanted to tell these stories.

I’m a white Jewish man who grew up in Encino in the San Fernando Valley. I’m really good at telling those stories, but to get authentic stories, I know that we needed to have a really diverse writer’s room who had come from different backgrounds. You know, we have more females than males, because that’s the way to tell the stories I wanted.

One of the great things about Netflix is that we’re dropping in 92 countries on the same day. I want to be able to have a show that reflects the world. No just some small-town reality where everybody is white and has the same exact story. I don’t think it’s interesting and I don’t think it makes it relevant.

The most important thing to me was telling authentic stories that resonated with the widest audience possible. And it’s something really important that I think an audience needs to be able to see themselves in a character, in the skin and story. Some people are going to really respond to Josh and some people are really going to respond to Angelica or Wesley. Or Miss Crumble. There’s somebody for everybody to feel like that’s their jam.

The comic book was told from this white male point of view. That’s a very narrow point of view, and if we’re going to be relevant, we need to have all the voices represented.

NL: In this world, adults haven’t survived the apocalypse. They’re either dead or ghoulies. What about when the teenagers reach 18? Is this something you’ll touch on in Daybreak?

Coleite: We do have an answer to that. It’s not a case of when you turn 18, you turn into a ghoulie situation. But we do have a theory that we give this season as to why adults didn’t make it and some of them did. We do give an answer to that question, but it’s not a mystery show where we deep dive into why it happened.

I do think there are trips that I want to play with. Whether it’s this season or next season when it will happen, I don’t know. It’s not the main focuse for the show, but I think there are some satisfying answers.

NL: So, you already have a plan for Daybreak season 2?

Coleite: Yep, there’s a plan. There’s actually a writer’s room and there are scripts. It’s a really exciting second season. It changes POV and changes expectations.

NL: How far in advance have you planned out? I know some showrunners take it a season at a time and others have a five-season plan.

Coleite: Hey, they might have five seasons, but it always changes year after year. I know I have a three-season arc to tell with these characters. That was how we went to Netflix with it. I do have ideas for how it expands afterward.

But storytelling is changing rapidly. I think the traditional seasons, how we tell stories, how we deliver them, whether in 10 episodes, eight episodes, I think we’re just really scratching the surface of what we can possibly do. I think that this show is built as evidence in the five episodes you’ve seen that we can be bold and aggressive and different on how we tell stories and what the definition is of a season. And that gets me really excited.

NL: Did being on Netflix change anything in the planning, knowing it would drop in full on one day rather than air week-to-week?

Coleite: Well, it did and it didn’t. It was built for a very enjoyable experience. That is absolutely true.

The show that made me want to become a writer was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every episode could have humor, but also horror and turned tropes on their head. It was a coming-of-age story at the same time, and a drama, and could make you cry. It was like a full experience to me and I wanted to emulate that in this season.

Another thing is that I was aware of the different writers throughout the TV season and certainly had a feeling of favorite episodes. Some episodes had distinct flavors. It could get a little bit sillier or really dark depending on the episode.

When I was watching Netflix, I was losing track of what happened in what episode. It became like a 10-hour movie and I lost the experience of having a favorite episode, you know? I couldn’t talk to friends at work and I was missing that experience in a binge. I was very upfront with Netflix about leaning into the serialized experience and the fan experience. I wanted to give mini cliffhangers that would keep the audience watching.

There are a ton of serialized elements but what I also wanted to lean back into was that feeling that the episodes are distinct little movies within themselves. You can talk to people about singular episodes and it’s those single episodes that add up to a full season. That’s another reason I wanted to break the episodes into individual characters. Those characters don’t only blend into the fabric of the series, but can stand out on their own.

So, to answer your question, there was a bit of a throwback experience and a progressive experience at the same time that embraced everything Netflix is about but also reminds audience and ourselves it takes a lot to do a single episode. You want the episode to shine on its own merits.

NL: I totally agree with you there. There have been many times I’ve binge-watched a Netflix show. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what happened in each individual episode. But I still turn to Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes for specific reasons and specific needs.

Coleite: I missed that social experience. I missed that fan experience.

Daybreak is available to binge-watch tomorrow and you’ll want to do so immediately.