The now-iconic Among Us video game became an international sensation during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provided the world with the perfect escape, one with an engaging, endlessly exciting social experience on top.
Among Us is a social deduction game like Secret Hitler or Mafia. Four to 15 players group up as little-suited aliens on a spaceship, and while performing tasks on the ship, they need to find out which among them is the imposter before the imposter kills everyone on board. Now, that sensation is an animated television show on Paramount+, one that has remained quiet about its existence since its announcement.
But the show surprised gamers at the Summer Game Fest (read more about what to expect at this year's Fest) with an unexpected ghost drop of the entire show, so you can watch it right now on Paramount+.
The Direct sat down with Among Us showrunner Owen Dennis to discuss how he painted his show's blank canvas, his philosophy on injecting Easter eggs into the Paramount+ series, and the unexpected approach he took when selecting which color avatars their characters would be.
Among Us Showrunner on Choosing Its Colorful Cast, Painting a Blank Canvas, & Injecting Easter Eggs
There Was Room to Do Anything They Wanted.
- The Direct: "Now, I was curious, was there any rhyme or reason as to what colors you chose as this main cast?"
Owen Dennis: It was purely feeling it, just what feels like it works. And it's weird because it's sort of like—I've heard some people say, oh yeah, red is usually the leader... But I think it's interesting because I think we're all just pulling from the same sort of cultural stuff, where it feels like, you know, there's the red Power Ranger, right, so yeah, Red's the leader, or things like that are subconsciously implanted in us that we don't always recognize...
- The Direct: "Among Us has such a personality, and it's so easily recognizable, but in a way, it's also a blank slate coming into this adaptation because there's just not much in terms of a narrative show. So, can you talk about how this show manages to capture everything special about the game, while getting to add a memorable narrative, characters, and a comedic touch that isn't there inherently in the original game?"
Dennis: Yeah, so that was actually one of the reasons I wanted to do it was because we have sort of a world that's hinted at, and there isn't a backstory, really. But there are people in the game, so we could basically make characters as we needed to, and so as drawings from the same inspiration that the game was clearly drawing from, which was like movies like Alien or Star Trek or something like that, and just being like, well, what are some of the similarities across all these shows and movies and things...
Dennis went through the process of how they chose what roles are commonplace on a spaceship and figured out what character archetypes each might embody:
Dennis: They always have like a captain, they always have, you know, a cook is pretty common, security guard—like there's certain things that just pop up a lot, so you get to be like, okay, well, then let's just take those ideas and run with those, and what sort of characters, what sort of people would have those jobs, what sort of people would want those jobs, what sort of people will be stuck in those jobs, even though they don't want them. Like, all that sort of stuff.
The filmmaker was also adamant that no matter what they did in the show, such as a joke or reference, it could all still "stand on its own:"
Dennis: And then hopefully letting it, you know, whenever we do some sort of joke or something that has something to do with the game that can be pulled from the game, making sure that it can stand on its own...You don't need to play the game and do your homework to get a joke. It drives me crazy whenever I watch something I don't get it and I realize it's because some things somewhere on some other platform or some other piece of media I was supposed to have watched, and it's like I had to do homework before I watched this show. This sucks, I don't want to do that, you know. So that's what I was. It was important to me to make sure everything can stand on its own.
- The Direct: "There are so many fun things in the game, in terms of just small little details, and watching the show, obviously, you were able to sneak in a lot of those. Some are very clear, some are just kind of small. I love the overhead shot that you guys have in the first episode. Can you talk about cleverly fitting those kind of things in without taking away from the core narrative and the characters, but also, like, so it doesn't just become this fest of like look at that, look at this, look at that?"
Dennis: Usually, I'm not really into referential humor because the problem with referential humor is that it's sort of like, here's my reference, I'm saying a thing, and then the person, the audience, goes, 'Oh yeah, I know that thing!' That's not a joke, that's just things that both of you know, like that's not a joke. So it's important to me to make sure that anytime we would have a thing that referenced the game in some way, that it had to be actually part of the plot or a joke that could stand on its own in some way, because I want anyone to be able to watch this and not have to know what happened in the game...
While Owen Dennis wanted the Among Us show to stand on its own, he pointed out that if you played the game, "you'll get more out of it."
Dennis: If you play the game, you'll get more out of it, but the emotions are still going to be the same whether you play the game or not. The emotion that you get, the characters are going to still work for you, that everything is still going to work for you, whether you play the game or not. And that was important to me, to make sure that anything we put in there has to be able to stand on its own, no problem, without playing the game
- The Direct: "Among Us is a concept that you know can go on for a long time. I'm curious, in your head, do you have any long-term plans of how long you may want this show to go, or do you think after a certain amount of time it could run its course?"
Dennis: I don't have a planned number of seasons, but I know that we can make more. There are definitely things, topics, and ways that we could get into the story that we didn't get to do in this season that I would love to be able to do in future seasons, and I would definitely take inspiration from the fact that, like, whenever you play the game, the story is a little bit different. It's a similar concept, but it's a little bit different, and I would try to build off of that idea.
Make sure to also check out this fun moment The Direct had with some of the cast of Among Us, including Elijah Wood, Yvette Nicole Brown, Randall Park, and Kimiko Glenn:
