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How ‘Cross’ Pumped Fresh Blood Into A Familiar Character By Leaning In To Challenges Facing Race & Modern Policing – Contenders TV
Star Aldis Hodge and 'Cross' creator Ben Watkins talked about how the series pumped fresh blood into a familiar character at Deadline's Contenders TV.
When it came to adapting and reinventing novelist James Patterson’s beloved Alex Cross for television, Cross showrunner and executive producer Ben Watkins and star/producer Aldis Hodge agreed that the literary character’s already rich world little explored onscreen would be best enhanced by layering in a more complex, of-the-moment and occasionally fraught relationship with race and the criminal justice system, befitting a Black detective. “I was actually approached about this project and my first instinct was to pass, because I knew it had been done as movies,” said Watkins, who created the Amazon Prime Video series in the wake of various films featuring Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry as Cross, during the show’s panel at the Deadline Contenders Television event. “And really, as much as I’m a crime junkie – growing up, I read a lot of books, detective novels, thrillers, but I hadn’t actually made it into the Cross series, and that is what changed my mind.”
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