Revival, SYFY’s television adaptation of the Image comics series by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton, is set to premiere in mere days. The show stars Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) as a local police officer in a town where the recently deceased suddenly rise of their graves, alive as they once were and largely unchanged… except for a few key differences.
The series’ showrunners, Luke Boyce and Aaron B. Koontz, both have horror backgrounds, and Revival certainly has horror elements. It also, at times, will make you laugh. That balance in tone, Koontz told me in a joint interview with Boyce, was intentional: “I think it’s about finding humanity within these crazy situations. That’s what allows you to connect better with people, because if something is light, and then it’s scary, you let your guard down, and then the scare hits a little bit more.”
Read on for my full discussion with Koontz and Boyce, including how Scrofano got involved in the production, and what they’ve planned out for the arc of the show relative to the comics.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
I want to hear about the origin story for adapting the comic to a television series.
Luke Boyce: I met [Revival comic creators] Tim Seeley and Mike Norton in 2016. We started talking about making stuff, and it just so happened that Revival was available at the time. I was a huge fan of comic, and Tim and Mike really wanted to do something in the indie space, so we started talking about that, and started talking about what that would look like as an adaptation.
We started looking at it as a feature. But then Aaron came on board after we had worked together on my feature, Revealer, and we started talking about doing it as television show. I sent him the book, and he really took to it, and he saw that first issue and loved how it played out potentially as a pilot. And from there, we started talking about what would this look like, to adapt this as a series.
Aaron B. Koontz: Yeah, and I’ve made a lot of movies, produced 25 or so features, directed a few of my own. I’ve never made a TV show, but I wanted this to be a TV show—that first issue just felt like the pilot. And so I was like, “Let’s pair up on this. I don’t just want to help get it made; I want to make it.” I was so attached to the material and drawn into the comic.
How did you get Melanie Scrofano involved to play Dana?
Koontz: We knew that our Dana was going to be the domino that led to everything else, right? So our casting directors had sent a number of people out, and some big names were on the list, and we looked at a bunch of stuff, but I had known Melanie—I’d seen a couple episodes of Wynonna Earp, but had not watched a lot of it, but I’d also seen her in Letterkenny, and she was so crafty, crazy in that. And then in Ready or Not, she had all these scene-stealing moments. Luke was watching her in Strange New Worlds, and we’re like, “Hey, this is a really great actress.”
And then we watched her reel and saw all this stuff, and we’re like, “Oh my God, she’s magic.” She not only has the elements to play Dana, but Melanie as a human is like Dana in real life—like we went to her Instagram, and we’re laughing at everything she’s doing. And we were like, if we create a place for her to be able to play, she could make all these stupid words we’re writing sound really, really funny and really great. And so it just became so obvious—just put some freckles on this person.
I wanted to talk about what your thoughts are for the arc of the TV show versus the story in the comics: Have you thought at all about where you think you know the show might go past the first season?
Boyce: We have many plans. Some very solid, some still being worked on. But we definitely have an interesting plan that we’re excited for people to view. I think when people get to the end of season one, they’re going to be like, “Whoa! Wait a minute! What are we doing here?”
It’s interesting—I don’t think I’ve seen it before, just in terms of adaptation… the comic is expansive, but a big portion of that comic are these side quests that it goes on, and it introduces new characters and new ideas and a lot of it veers from the murder mystery. So we really wanted to focus on that murder mystery in season one. We wanted that to be the crux of the show. And so we rearranged things. Aaron and I had this Miro board where we would say, “Okay, this has got to happen, and it’s got to happen around here. So how do we build to that organically, through our own version of the story, our own version of these characters?”
The spirit of the comic is definitely there, the characters the world. But we zig where you might think we’d zag, and we really wanted to play with that. And then as a whole, broadly speaking, future seasons and things like that, we have interesting ideas of how we’re going to play with that stuff from the comics, but we’re going to do things that nobody’s expecting as well.
Koontz: And things that Tim and Mike wanted to do that they didn’t quite get to do. We’ve really spoken with them about ideas, so I feel very good about it. I have a very interesting idea of a three-season arc in particular that is very exciting to us.
One of the things I appreciate about the show was the balance with the tone. Because it’s pretty dark, but there’s definitely some levity and fun moments as well. Can you talk about how you made sure you kept that balance?
Koontz: This permeates a lot of my work. So my main company, Paper Street Pictures, one of our mottos is, “horror with heart.” And that’s really what we’re trying to strive for. I think it’s about finding humanity within these crazy situations. That’s what allows you to connect better with people, because if something is light, and then it’s scary, you let your guard down, and then the scare hits a little bit more. And then if you have a little more emotion, and that person’s being chased or they’re in danger, now we care more about the person that’s in danger.
I think all these things go hand in hand, and they’re two sides of the same coin in so many different ways. But in the comic itself, it also had this rural noir, or farm noir, is how Tim would put it. When we were selling it, I was like, “Look, this is Fargo characters in a Mare of Easttown kind of mystery, with a massive supernatural twist and horror elements within.”
And these are all things I love. And I think it makes for a more entertaining show, personally, rather than if we were just a drama. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s pull the rug where you think we’re going to go.
Revival premieres Thursday, June 12, 2025, at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on SYFY.
I’m looking forward to this but at the same time that Melanie Scrofano is a big draw for us — we loved Wynonna Earp in this household even when it got a bit too much — it’s gonna feel weird to see her play another law-enforcement officer in a small town with supernatural stuff going on. Yeah, I know, Buster Keaton played Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, etc.; I just think we’re in for a kind of dissonant head space at first because of the similarities. Revival does seem to have a different tone — and I certainly wish everyone involved success.
I said “Buster Keaton” instead of “Buster Crabbe” but despite waiting and trying again the site won’t let me edit my actual comment. (I’ve had an exhausting week.)
Oh, I forgot until looking at the photos that Andy McQueen is on the show and he was so, so, so good on Mrs. Davis as a character I won’t spoil because everyone should check out that batshit crazy limited series on Peacock.
We set Revival to record as a series on our DVR a couple of weeks ago, by the way, and the number of 1-, 2-minute previews in the middle of the night is ridiculous.