‘SEAL Team’ Showrunner on Movie, Future of Show & Finding Home on Paramount+

Meredith Jacobs September 22, 2022, 11:30 am

Toni Trucks as Lisa Davis, David Boreanaz as Jason Hayes, Jessica Pare as Mandy Ellis, Neil Brown Jr as Ray Perry, Tyler Grey as Trent, AJ Buckley as Sonny Quinn, and Justin Melnick as Brock in SEAL Team — Monty Brinton/Paramount+

SEAL Team‘s sixth season may have just started, but after that wild premiere, we need more — and we should be at least getting a movie.

Paramount+ announced in February that it would be expanding the military drama’s universe with a stand-alone film, from the series creative team of David Boreanaz, Christopher Chulack, and Spencer Hudnut. So, when we caught up with Hudnut recently, we tried to find out more about it as what the future holds for SEAL Team. Plus, get a tease for how the current season ends and more.

Can you say anything about the movie?

Spencer Hudnut: Not really at the moment. We just wrapped Season 6 a week ago in Jordan. So we’re just kind of focused on having a great launch of this and hopefully giving the fans a great season. And then after that, movie, Season 7, there’s a lot more stories to tell and we’re excited to tell them — hopefully have the opportunity to tell them, I should say.

So do you know if the movie would be between Seasons 6 and 7? Or not yet?

There’s still a lot of conversations going on about that. So I think there’s a lot to be figured out.

I know Season 6 is just starting, but are you feeling confident about Season 7?

I feel very confident about the stories we’re telling in Season 6. And I think my hope is that the audience is engaged by what we’re doing. My hope is that they feel like we continue to raise the bar, just in our production value. This is why we went to Jordan for the last month to shoot the last parts of the last four episodes. We’re trying to continue to raise the bar and just bring as good a show as possible to our audience. We’re trying not to repeat ourselves, we’re trying to keep the show fresh. And so I think at the end of this season, we leave all of our Bravo family in a place where there’s clearly a lot more story to tell. So yeah, my hope is that we can continue moving forward and having this deep connection with our audience.

David Boreanaz as Jason Hayes and Neil Brown Jr. as Ray Perry in SEAL Team

Speaking of not repeating yourselves, does that mean that we shouldn’t expect Season 6 to end with all of Bravo in danger, again, like Season 5?

[Laughs] Yeah, looking back on Season 5, we made this move to Paramount+, nobody knew if it would work or not. We had some question marks moving forward, and so on the one hand, I felt like leaving Bravo in the middle of a firefight was almost appropriate given the show was about these forever wars and it was the 20th anniversary of the war on terror. But at the same time, there were so many question marks about potentially losing members of our cast, and so that sort of necessitated the cliffhanger. I think we end this season in a place where people will want to come back and see how we get Bravo out of their next predicament.

And the move to Paramount+ has been good because you can do more with the type of show you have.

Oh, for sure, yeah. Just creatively and from a writing perspective, it’s been so liberating. I think it’s allowed us just to dig a little deeper into these storylines, be a little darker, and we pride ourselves on our authenticity and I think the show feels even more real than maybe it did on CBS. We didn’t want to change the formula too much because obviously we had a strong audience over at CBS, but I think it’s been a really good move for the show. And I think this season in particular, you really get to see what we can do with 10 episodes. So it was exciting from a writing point of view to break a season that really only covered 10 episodes as opposed to 22 of the past.

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Speaking of real, the opening of the premiere and just the ability to have the characters swearing as opposed to what they’d have to say on CBS.

[Laughs] No, exactly. It always felt a little disingenuous that these guys were getting the crap kicked out of ’em and were not really speaking as authentically as they would. So that has definitely been a plus for us. Although I do get a lot of messages on social media about our use of the F word, so some people aren’t necessarily super into it. But no, I think the actors have really embraced this move. The writers and directors have embraced it. So we’re thrilled with our new home.

SEAL Team, Sundays, Paramount+