Alexander Skarsgard teases faithful adaptation of Murderbot – with author having key input
The Apple TV+ series is mostly sticking to the book.
TV and film adaptations of books don’t always follow the source material, but Murderbot’s lead has hinted that the series version will follow its novella rather faithfully.
While Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries series is currently comprised of seven books, season 1 of the show only follows All Systems Red – the first book.
Even when the first trailer for Murderbot first dropped, we knew that the Apple TV+ adaptation would at least carry over the novella’s premise about a newly sentient cyborg who has to hide their unique personality.
It turns out All Systems Red’s initial short length helped pave the way to make the show more faithful to the book.
Ahead of Murderbot’s release, RadioTimes.com spoke to Skarsgard and asked about any changes that had to be made.
He responded: "The first season is based on All Systems Red, which is the first novella of the series of the Murderbot Diaries, and it’s a novella.
"It's very short, it's brief, it's condensed, the storyline is pretty straightforward in terms of, like, the beats that are happening, the action beats with that kind of propels it forward."
"And so we felt that was the structure that's kind of the blueprint, and it works really well in the novella, so there was no reason to kind of change that," Skarsgard added.
On the other hand, Murderbot wasn’t completely free of changes from the novella. Instead, adjustments had been made to SecUnit’s human clients from the book instead.
"So I think what we did was more on a character level, probably an inter-relational level between the characters. We also, for some reason, the group of humans that murder bot is assigned to protect is slightly smaller," Skarsgard explained.
“We combined a couple of characters made two into one, because we felt that it was easier to kind of build relationships with these humans if they're if there aren't quite as many of them.
"But other than that, I think it's quite faithful to Martha Wells's novella, and we try to stay very faithful to the tone of Murderbot, as well that the character that I'm playing."
The Northman actor also left room for some other tweaks that are yet to be seen in the show, like the like of SecUnit altogether.
He elaborated: "Obviously, with the freedom to kind of explore and create our own version of [Martha Wells's] character, that was also important to feel that there was an opportunity to kind of make the armour slightly different from the one in the novel, if we felt the need to."
Murderbot will continue on Friday 23rd May on Apple TV+. Subscribe to Apple TV+ here.
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