‘Sons of Anarchy’ Creator Kurt Sutter Says ‘First 9’ Prequel Is Dead, for Now

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter is out at FX, and will no longer being working on Mayans M.C., which is something he says affects his planned First 9 prequel as well, as the project is effectively dead for now. Sutter recently sat down with Deadline for an extensive conversation bout what happened to land him in hot water with FX/Disney, and during the discussion he revealed the unfortunate news about the Sons of Anarchy prequel.

“As of now, the possibility of doing that doesn’t look that hopeful. It’s their property. They’re not going to let me take it somewhere else,” Sutter said, when asked about First 9. “Right now, that relationship is in flux. With time and a shift in attitude, will we be able to do it? I don’t know. Hopefully. Maybe.”

He then went on to share some details, saying, “As for how far it got, here’s what I knew I wanted to do. I knew it wasn’t a long series, that I wanted to do a limited series. Ideally, it was nine [or] ten episodes. The model I love is the Sherlock model. I love the idea of doing four two-hour episodes. The way I write, the episodes are way longer than they are supposed to be anyway. So that to me would have been ideal.”

Sutter continued, “To do four movies basically and tell a story that starts in Vietnam with John Teller and Piney and taking it through the last of the first nine members of the club to show up. Which was Clay. And then ending it there. I didn’t want to fuck with the mythology that we had laid down. I just wanted to tell the story with the loose pieces we already had. I wanted the tone to be different, because it’s period.”

“We are in a pretty rugged time right now, but it takes place in probably one of the most tumultuous periods, politically and socially, in the 60s with the Vietnam War,” he went on to share. “I wanted to really let the time and place and politics influence story. Tonally, I think it would have been a little different than Sons. But that’s as far as I got. I never sat down and started breaking story. I just knew, that’s where I wanted to begin, that’s where I wanted it to end, and I knew it was a one-off. Right now, the possibility of that is not going to happen. Over time, who knows?”

Now that Sutter is no longer part of the production team for Mayans, series co-creator Elgin James has taken the lead. At this time, the future of the show is said to be uncertain.

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