Dark Matter is a sci-fi thriller series based on the blockbuster book by acclaimed, bestselling author Blake Crouch. The nine-episode series features an ensemble cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga, Jimmi Simpson, Dayo Okeniyi and Oakes Fegley. Dark Matter makes its global debut on Apple TV+ on 8 May 2024, premiering with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Wednesday through 26 June 2024.

Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. The series will follow Jason Dessen (played by Joel Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who — one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago — is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.

Crouch serves as executive producer, showrunner, and writer alongside executive producers Matt Tolmach and David Manpearl for Matt Tolmach Productions, and Joel Edgerton. Dark Matter is produced for Apple TV+ by Sony Pictures Television.

You can head on over here for our full review of Dark Matter.

Courtesy of Apple TV+ Malaysia, we were given the opportunity to interview Dark Matter author/showrunner Blake Crouch and executive producer Matt Tolmach. This interview has been edited for clarity.

Can you tell us more about the process of adapting your book?

Blake Crouch: A hugely involving process that started in 2016 when the book was finished. We started to try to have it adapted as a film, found out that we were having to lose way too many amazing moments, character moments. We pivoted to TV in 2019 and started developing that for three years and got the greenlight from Apple. Jumped into casting, moved to Chicago in May 2022 and shot for seven months. And then did another four months for post-processing. Yeah, it’s been my life for a long, long time.

How did you handle all the details while making the series?

Blake Crouch: It was a very challenging schedule that had to be thoughtfully laid out in advance. Because when you have actors playing different characters, we had sets like the Dessen house in World One and then we had to keep the bones of it the same but we had to completely redress it for World Two, which is where Jason Two comes from.

So, if you want to get into the nitty gritty details, we started shooting in Jason Two’s house and shot that out and then went and shot other things while production came in and changed everything around to build it into Jason One’s house, and we did that with multiple sets. It didn’t seem that crazy in the moment but now looking back on it, that was insane what we tried to do.

The multiverse concept is now more popular and mainstream, but Dark Matter is more character-driven and emotional than other sci-fi stories. What makes Dark Matter unique amongst other multiverse stories?

Blake Crouch: The reason I write stories that way is because someone said once that all art is a response to other art. When I read science fiction, I love the plotty stuff of science fiction so much but it often leaves me feeling a little empty when it comes to the characters, it’s like a lot of flash, little substance. And I want all of the things, I want to have the cool plot, the cool premise but I also want to have the characters that we fall in love with because each enhances the other and that is my response to science fiction, is to kind of write the books or make the kinds of shows that I wish existed.

For us, it’s about characters, alternate realities is an interesting way into a very human story about the path not taken. We think of this as a show about choices, made choices, choices not made, and how those haunt us for the course of our lives.

The characters and the grounded nature of their lives make it unique. I think that people want to watch characters that they see themselves in and we try to make this show based around a family a lot of people can see themselves in and trigger questions of, am I happy with my life, am I happy with where I find myself in the world at this moment. That’s what this show is about, the sci-fi premise is just the way in to meeting these characters.

What made Blake Crouch’s book an ideal choice for adaptation?

Matt Tolmach: I think it’s such a big idea because it’s a question that, if we’re being honest, we’ve all pondered, and we all asked ourselves. I think that, to me, is what made it feel, and when you hear people who’ve seen the trailer or read the novel, my god, it makes me curious about this because I think grounding it in real characters, that’s what people want to see, they want to see life that they can relate and identify with, but in a slightly heightened context. The context being this idea of multiple realities but that lends itself so well to a limited series, the suspense of following Jason as he tries to get home. That’s a journey I think people will be wanting to go on, I hope so.

It’s interesting when in Dark Matter that whenever the scene transitions from Jason One to Jason Two or vice versa, there is this snapping scene. Can you tell us more about how that unique element came to be added to the series?

Blake Crouch: I believe it came during the editing process, when we were editing the pilot and starting to move back and forth between Jason One and Jason Two’s point of view, we just realized we needed some subliminal thing to signify to the audience that it had changed. It’s fine if they don’t catch on to it in the pilot or ever, frankly. It’s just this subtle mnemonic device that signals we’re going to a different place.

I believe one of our editors came up with, a guy named Joe Leonard, who edited most of the episodes of Dark Matter. We had so many meetings about what the snap should sound like. It’s actually not just a snap, it also has elements of a falling drop of water as well. It’s a lot of different sounds combined into one that says, we’re changing worlds.

What was the most common conversation you had with the cast and crew while filming Dark Matter?

Blake Crouch: You know, the actors in these situations were being asked to portray characters in crazy situations. None of us have ever been in a place where we’re living with a version of our wife or our husband who is not truly them. It’s just outside of the box thinking, and a lot of the questions had to do with where am I, what is my mindset, what do I really think of my husband in this moment, what do I think of Jason in this moment.

There’s a lot of questions about the science itself, especially when we started working in the corridor and the box sets, just in terms of understanding of oh, we’re in superposition when we’re in the corridor and when the door opens, immediately it closes because the actors don’t have the benefit of visual effects, there’s a big blu screen in the distance. In trying to help them understand, when the audience sees this, when the door closes, there’s going to be this infinite corridor as long as the eye can see and the moment you open the door, boom, it closes again. They didn’t have that benefit so it’s just really helping everyone remember the rules of quantum mechanics as they apply to Dark Matter.

Check out the trailer below: