Alexander Skarsgård in “Murderbot.”
Although he’s been a well-respected writer, producer and director in Hollywood for decades, Murderbot executive producer David S. Goyer admits that not every project is an easy sell in the entertainment business.
In fact, Goyer was challenged for years in bringing his new sci-fi action comedy Murderbot to life, but he saw his passion for the material through to bring viewers one of the most unique sci-fi series to hit any visual medium in recent memory.
Goyer has had a huge presence in Hollywood for the past 35 years. On film, his screenwriting credits include critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller Dark City, Marvel’s Blade trilogy (of which he directed Blade: Trinity), Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy and Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The filmmaker, however, is just as prolific with his TV work, as the developer and co-creator of Netflix’s The Sandman series and co-creator of Apple TV+’s Foundation, and serving as a writer and producer on both shows — and directing three episodes of the latter.
Goyer serves as an executive producer on Murderbot and was instrumental in securing the rights to author Martha Wells’ book series The Murderbot Diaries.
Murderbot arrived on Apple TV+ on May 16 with two-episode premiere and Episode 3 will debut on the streamer on Friday. Created by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz, Murderbot stars Alexander Skarsgård in the title role as a cyborg who self-hacks its own governing module to become self-aware.
Assigned to protect a group of explorers, Murderbot — as the security unit dubs itself — must resist the urge to kill its human counterparts by containing the secret that it is operating under his own free will. Despite its homicidal tendencies, Murderbot also finds the explorers endearing, which becomes helpful as it tries to figure out its place in the universe.
Murderbot also stars Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tattiawna Jones and Tamara Podemski.
David S. Goyer on the set of “Murderbot.”
While Goyer is thrilled that Murderbot is finally available to the masses, he said he had to dig in his heels to traverse the long and bumpy road on the way to finding a studio to produce the series.
“My producing partner, Keith Levine, and I read a lot of science fiction, a lot of times just for leisure, but when I read Martha’s first Murderbot novella seven years ago or so, I immediately fell in love with it,” Goyer told me in a recent Zoom conversation. “We reached out to her, and she very graciously gave us an option and a shopping agreement.”
However, as Goyer soon found out, shopping the series was filled with a lot of roadblocks, with executives simply not getting what Murderbot was all about.
“No one was interested. They were like, ‘This is just RoboCop’ and we were like, ‘No, it’s not at all. It’s the anti-RoboCop,’” Goyer recalled. “It’s about neurodivergence. It’s about humanity.”
Goyer said that during the time he and Levine were trying to sell Murderbot as a series, it won the prestigious Hugo and Nebula Awards, which attracted the attention of a company that wanted to make it a feature film.
All seemed to finally be going Goyer and Levine’s way until another roadblock popped up — and it was a huge one. The company they working with went bankrupt, but thankfully, they hadn’t signed the deal yet.
Goyer said he was working on Foundation on Apple TV+ when the stars finally aligned. He said the Weitz brothers fell in love with a pitch for Murderbot and agreed to join the project and create the show through a deal they had with Paramount Television Studios.
Andrew Miano, Paul Weitz, Alexander Skarsgard, Chris Weitz, Keith Levine, David S. Goyer at Apple … More
Building The Perfect Murderbot
Murderbot is no question a huge departure for Alexander Skarsgård, who has been winning acclaim for years thanks to his dramatic work in such series as True Blood, Big Little Lies and Succession, as well as films including The Northman and Infinity Pool.
And while Murderbot is a blend of sci-fi with action and suspense, comedy is at the heart of the series. Luckily, David S. Goyer said, Skarsgård got that sensibility about the character immediately.
“A lot of very good actors auditioned [for the role], but they were just taking it too seriously,” Goyer recalled. “Alexander didn’t audition — he was an offer— but we had a number of conversations first and he was really eager. He immediately realized the kind of opportunity [the role presented], that you love because [it’s] crotchety and weird and super on the spectrum and blurts out things. That’s why you love [it].”
One thing that Goyer discovered working with Skarsgård was that he’s just as funny off-screen as he is on-screen.
“He’s funny in real life and also just a really lovely guy,” Goyer observed. “He’s very self-deprecating.”
David S. Goyer Says It Was Important For Martha Wells To Be Involved In The Making Of ‘Murderbot’
David S. Goyer said it was important that Murderbot maintained the tone of the book to ensure the fans of the series would be happy, beginning with fan No. 1: Martha Wells.
Even though Wells worked closely with Goyer and company during the making of Murderbot, Goyer said that all would be for naught if she didn’t like the completed project. Fortunately, she did and then some.
“Just as a fan [of The Murderbot Diaries] it would be terrible to screw it up,” Goyer said. “One of the things that I felt good about working on this was that it was really important to Paul and Chris [Weitz] that Martha be heard and happy, and it was important to myself and Keith as well.”
As such, Goyer said, Wells “was involved every step of the way.”
“She read all the scripts and came up to the set for shooting,” Goyer recalled. “Apple was great because sometimes when we were talking about marketing or publicity, we [were able to express our] thoughts about whether or not that’s what Martha would want.
Ultimately, Goyer added, Wells “fell in love with Murderbot and now Apple’s fallen in love with it, too.”
“You can’t just detach the creator,” Goyer said. “It would have broken our hearts if Martha weren’t happy.”
While Murderbot is not quite in the rearview mirror for Goyer — he’s naturally hoping for a Season 2 because there are many more stories to be told via Wells’ book series — the writer-producer-director is keeping himself busy with two more big projects in 2025: The Sandman will return for its second and final season with six episodes on July 3 and six more episodes on July 24; while Foundation Season 3 arrives on Apple TV+ on July 11 with the first of 10 episodes.
With such a full schedule, it begs the question, “How does Goyer do it?”
“I’m very organized. If you saw my calendar, it’s ‘Work on this project from 9:30 to 10:30, do this from this to this to this’ — I’m very regimented,” Goyer said with a smile.
Murderbot begins streaming on Apple TV+ Friday with a two-episode premiere, with new episodes premiering weekly through July 11.
Note: Some quotes in this interview feature were condensed or edited for clarity.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/05/22/murderbot-ep-david-s-goyer-on-alexander-skarsgrd-and-staying-true-to-martha-wells-books/