Television and movies are obsessed with intellectual properties in Hollywood. Each project must take advantage of an existing work or brand to make sense on a promotional level, so that the studios bet on them, often even thinking of how to expand them and turn them into hyper-productive fictional universes. And at Amazon, which precisely in September was a clear example of this trend with the premiere of The Rings of Power that used material from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, now they want to surprise with the creation of an original fictional universe called Citadel .
The development and production of Citadel, for the record, possibly weighs excessively because it is a new bet. The Russo brothers, after signing Avengers: Endgame, sold this project as executive producers in which Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec had to take the creative reins: the presentation of an action and spy franchise. Citadel is a supra-governmental organization that tries to maintain international peace and order beyond the interests of States, with headquarters in different parts of the planet.
Early on, the Russos, Applebaum, and Nemec devised a narrative deployment: Once Citadel was released, Amazon could issue spin-offs centered on agents from the organization’s various offices. For example, in theory, series set in India, Italy and Mexico should be released, which will allow Citadel to be a global franchise, which has its letter of introduction in the initial production in English but which will branch out commercially and culturally with new stories in other languages, which will be complementary. It was the translation of the Marvel mentality into an original idea that, in turn, had many disagreements behind the scenes.
As we published at the time, Amazon agreed with the Russos for a first season of seven episodes for the modest price of 160 million. The first names hired conveyed the commercial pretensions of the Citadel with a Game of Thrones and Marvel alumnus like Richard Madden, a Bollywood star like Priyanka Chopra turned queen of the heart in the United States after marrying singer Joe Jonas, and finally Stanley Tucci. to give it a patina of respectability.
The Hollywood Reporter reported that after seeing the first footage, the content platform was dissatisfied and the Russos confronted Applebaum and Nemec over the vision that both sides had of what the Citadel should be. Applebaum, who was the showrunner, and director Brian Kirk were fired, and David Weil joined the ship as chief creative officer under the watchful eye of the Russos, building on his good relationship with Amazon after writing Hunters, the Nazi-hunting series with Al. Pacino. Re-recordings under this new helm pushed production to over 200 million, a very opulent figure for an original production without dragons.
It is ironic, however, that the process of gestation, production and promotion of Citadel is so marked by the context when, in reality, when watching the series you do not observe all these factors. His argument is extremely generic. His staging achieves the impossible: that it is understood that there is money and at the same time it is not perceived. And, despite the changes behind the scenes, it has a cohesive, coherent vision that postulates Citadel as tacky entertainment.
The story begins with Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra) on a train through the Italian Alps. She must rescue a briefcase of enriched uranium and, while she has her eyes on her target, she has time to flirt with Mason Kane (Madden), another Citadel agent. But despite believing they have the mission under control, they soon discover that they are in a coup against their organization: another agency tries to take them all down, and when Mason wakes up after an accident, she suffers from amnesia. She rebuilds her life, finds a partner, has a daughter, and suddenly Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), her link to the Citadel, comes to meet her because he needs her help. Maybe her brain doesn’t remember the past but her body does react to stimuli like a secret agent.
With its lipstick lines, Chopra walking down the train in a red dress, basic flirtations, ridiculous gadgets and lousy bad guys, Citadel is a kind of TV James Bond with a few Jason Bourne amnesiac drops. It is curious that it is a sequel to 007 considering that Amazon bought MGM, which has the rights to Bond.
But in Citadel everything is so generic that it even borders on camp ground, like the idea that a spy is enough to be conventionally attractive and wear red lipstick to get a conversation in a bar with a man with uranium in his suitcase. Luck of its self-awareness that, together with some solvent action scenes (pay attention to Richard Madden’s in the bathroom), allows it to be effective in doses of less than 40 minutes. Yes, David Weil has joined the fashion of offering short episodes and saving us the filler.
Does it make sense that it is conceived as the beginning of a television universe with three derivative series shot in different parts of the planet? Considering your lack of personality, I’d say the answer is as obvious as the proposition.
