Hunters Creator David Weil Discusses “Colorful” Season 2 (Exclusive)

Meyer Offerman’s collection of Nazi executioners are back in business. Prime Video’s Hunters is returning for its second and final season and is bringing back just about every star from its first installment. On-screen talent like Logan Lerman and Al Pacino are once again in the lead, but the comebacks extend to behind the scenes as well. At the top of that list is series creator David Weil, who scribed a bulk of the episodes in both Season 1 and Season 2 while also fulfilling executive producer duties.

Years before Prime Video greenlit the series, Hunters simply existed in Weil’s mind. Taking inspiration from World War II bedtime stories recounted by his grandmother, Weil put together an “80-page bible” and a spec script in 2015 ahead of pitching the project to potential suitors. The phone finally rang in 2018, as Prime Video gave Hunters a straight-to-series order.

Once Weil got the Hunters ball rolling, it never truly stopped. Seven months after getting the go-ahead, Lerman and Pacino joined the production, with the remainder of the ensemble finalizing their deals in the subsequent weeks.

“Each character required a different set of skills and tools. For Jonah in particular, having a character who was a young man but was thrust into this incredibly special and almost super heroic world required an actor with a great deal of maturity, emotional range, great perception and nuance in their skillset,” Weil told ComicBook.com’s Liam Crowley. “Logan Lerman was our dream choice. We feel so lucky and felt so lucky to get him then and to continue the story with him now. Having Al Pacino in the show, it’s like the craziest dream come true. I think once Logan was on board and Al was on board, it then became so much easier to cast so many of the other roles because people couldn’t wait to work with them.”

This assembly of A-List actors bring the heat as well. Hunters Season 1 emphasizes its TV-MA rating right off the bat, as the show delivers a level of violence akin to fellow Prime Video series The Boys.

“There is a very specific language of violence in this show,” Weil detailed. “I think there’s a bit of catharsis and wish fulfillment in the pulp, right? In allowing these characters, especially the Jewish characters who are often portrayed in stories of the Holocaust as victims and only as victims, to give them a sense of might, of power, of strength. In these acts of might, we tried to make it as colorful as possible.”

While Season 2 continues the Hunters lore, it doesn’t exactly pick up right where Jonah and company left off. As evident by promotional footage, Hunters Season 2 has a fairly significant time jump.

“I think it’s always exhilarating to allow the audience into the position of having to be a detective themselves, having to uncover and uncloak some of the things that had happened in the past,” Weil noted. “It was also naturally two years between when the seasons would air, so let’s lean into that in the show.”

That time jump is just one of many real-life reflections that Hunters provides. Weil added that the show’s characters are meant to mirror the Jewish strength he has seen in the world.

“This series was about owning that Jewishness, about being proud of it,” Weil said. “Depicting Jewish characters with might and strength. Characters who are bada–, who are movie stars, who are sexy and cool and fun. That was the great ambition of this series. I hope that viewers will take that message and that idea away.”

Hunters Season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.