Prime Video is betting big on the spy series ‘Citadel,’ positioning the April 28 premiere of its six densely plotted first season episodes (two upon launch, the rest unspooling weekly throughout May) as a global television event. The Amazon streaming service, seeking to further define and carve out a brash new identity with consumers, is positioning the show as a “mothership” anchor, along with two local-language satellite series set in India and Italy.
Executive produced by Joe and Anthony Russo’s AGBO, and overseen by show-runner David Weil, the series opens eight years after the fall of the Citadel, a shadowy, independent spy agency loyal to no nation. The group was taken down by Manticore, a powerful criminal syndicate puppeteering the world from the shadows, who apparently killed off plenty of Citadel agents but erased the memories of others, like Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), who narrowly escaped with their lives.
Desperately needing the help of his former Citadel colleague to prevent Manticore from establishing a new world order, Nick Fury… err, sorry, Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci) tracks down Mason, who in turn reconnects with his old partner Nadia. Unaware of their pasts but plugged back in to their very special set of skills, the two spies embark on a mission that takes them around the world, all while contending with a complicated relationship built on a shuffled deck of secrets and lies. In addition to the aforementioned stars, Lesley Manville and a host of well-recognized international faces such as Varun Dhawan and Matilda De Angelis pop up in recurring roles.
Joe and Anthony Russo Aim to Apply Their Expertise at World-Building to the Spy Genre
No strangers to sprawling narrative world-building after their record-smashing work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Russo brothers turned plenty of heads when the deal between AGBO and Amazon was first announced.
“The concept was an idea that (Amazon Studios CEO) Jen Salke presented to us a few years ago,” recalled Joe Russo during a special press event introducing the project’s trailer. “The notion of telling a story that could be interwoven throughout the world — it would have a flagship show, and then regional shows written, produced and directed by regional talent — we thought was, one, such a novel idea for a narrative. And, two, it was an amazing way to create a really diverse global community of storytellers to tell a giant mosaic of a narrative together. After our work on the Marvel films, and spending so much time traveling the globe, this was an idea I think that was really exciting to Anthony and I, and ignitable for us, (even if it) seemed like an incredible challenge.”
Anthony Russo agreed. “It feels like this is something Joe and I’ve been working toward for many years now,” he said. “As storytellers, we really love the engagement of the global film community. So it was an incredible opportunity, and we went to work trying to find the right story that could sort of fulfill that ambition.”
Their search for a collaborator led them to David Weil, already well known to Amazon for his work as the creator-writer of both ‘Hunters‘ and the anthology drama series ‘Solos,’ among other projects. He was drawn, like a moth to a flame, to the same elements that attracted the Russo brothers.
“What’s so both beautiful and ambitious about this entire spy-verse, or spy universe, that we’re creating is that we’re doing it in tandem with partners all around the world,” said Weil, name-checking the announced Indian and Italian spin-offs. “We get to work with these incredible writers, filmmakers, actors and producers truly from all around the world, and build this entire story together. So it becomes this tapestry told in different languages through different cultures, but in a very authentic way. It’s not just a Western point-of-view that we’re [imposing upon] the story. We really are doing something original, and really holding hands and building this at the same time with all of our fellow creators and producers.”
Multiple Versions of Characters, But Don’t Call It a Multi-Verse
While the grand plan may be for ‘Citadel’ and its satellite shows to interlock as puzzle pieces, the creators realize none of those aspirations matter without compelling characters. And, to that end, the Russos and Weil wanted to make sure that there was plenty of meat on the bone for performers to challenge themselves with, as well as keep viewers guessing.
“Both Richard and Priyanka get to play multiple versions of themselves, and this notion that their memories have been erased allows them to create new characters who then have to rediscover who they were,” said Joe Russo. “Then, their new personalities come in conflict with their old personalities. And that, to us, was the idea that I think most excited us, because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before — where you have multiple characters dealing with a crisis of personality and a crisis of conscience.”
That dynamic made things thrilling for Chopra Jonas and Madden — but also quite challenging. “I think the show has so many layers and complexities,” said Chopra Jonas, “and there’s a word that we used from the beginning, which was duality, for every character. What you see is what you don’t get. Don’t believe what you see. Everything is just conceptually crazy.”
Unpacking his character a bit, Madden reflected upon the heady philosophical questions that he found ‘Citadel’ raised, both during production and long after the first season shoot had finished.
“They are both the same man in lots of different ways, but with each version of them, you pull out different aspects of kind of humanity, and who they are as people,” he said. “One of them carries a lot of scars from the past and a lot of trauma. And the other one doesn’t carry any of that baggage — he just has a whole bunch of unknown to him. So we end up having these two very different characters, and that’s kind of what was exciting to explore about them — (the notion of) how much of your character traits are built into you, and how much are inherited through trauma and experience?”
Priyanka Chopra Jonas Is Scarred by ‘Citadel’… Literally
Since the series is built around spies and lies, the debut trailer — which includes fisticuffs on a train, some gunplay, and a base-jumping leap off of a building — leans into a couple familiar modes of expression that will perhaps trip wires of memory sensation amongst genre audiences. There’s a pinch of the flirty banter from ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ for example, as well as a little bit of the did-I-really-just-do-that? bewilderment of Jason Bourne discovering the full extent of his hand-to-hand combat abilities in ‘The Bourne Identity.’ The action, viewers are shown, is going to be abundant.
For Chopra Jonas, in fact, it was a scarring experience.
“You see this scar on my eyebrow?” she asks, pointing toward her left temple. “Yeah, that’s courtesy of ‘Citadel.’ I don’t even cover it anymore.”
Still, she’s not complaining. In fact, the erstwhile ‘Quantico’ star quite loved the overt physicality of the show. “I think Joe and Anthony brought the most incredible stunt team onto the show — I mean, obviously, with their repertoire,” said Chopra Jonas. “And I got to explore a lot of that with the stunts that we did. Every time I would read new pages, the stunts would just get bigger and bigger and bigger. So it was amazing to be able to imagine that, and then walk on the set and actually execute it.”
Madden, meanwhile, wants prospective viewers to come to the show expecting a well-measured blend of big-budget spectacle, and top-shelf small screen character plotting. “I think oftentimes we see shows that are 80 percent drama and 20 percent action, or vice versa. This show aimed to be 100 percent of both,” he said.
“And I think that’s what we’ve managed to pull off, because in the middle of these huge sequences with explosions and cars blowing up and all of that, we have this really intimate drama between these two characters, and how they dance together,” Madden continued. “So, for me, that’s what was so exciting about these huge action pieces — that they are infused with heart and drama and storytelling. We get to see a lot about these characters, and how they physically interact, (because) there’s drama at the heart of each one of them.”
Chopra Jonas concurs. “The choices in the action pieces are made because of what the characters are feeling,” she said. “So there’s a story interwoven into all the stunts.”
Even if, sometimes, they end up leaving a mark.
Movies Similar to ‘Citadel:’
- ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘ (2014)
- ‘Captain America: Civil War‘ (2016)
- ‘Avengers: Infinity War‘ (2018)
- ‘Avengers: Endgame‘ (2019)
- ‘Eternals‘ (2021)
