‘Obliterated’ Creators On Scoring Second Netflix Hit, Prosthetic Privates & ‘Cobra Kai’ Update – The Deadline Q&A

The hits don’t stop for Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, the trio behind Cobra Kai and most recently, Netflix’s latest No. 1 hit, Obliterated.

Obliterated is a return to the trio’s roots which began with raunchy comedies like Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (2004) and its follow-ups Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008), Harold & Kumar Go to Amsterdam (2008) and A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011); American Reunion (2012); Blockers (2018); and Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), among others.

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The new 8-episode Netflix series, currently available to stream in its entirety, follows an elite joint-special operations team assembled from various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces and intelligence services to stop a deadly terrorist network from blowing up Las Vegas. Obliterated stars Nick Zano, Shelley Hennig, Terrence Terrell, Paola Lázaro, C. Thomas Howell and Eugene Kim.

As Deadline reported earlier this week, the series took over the top spot from Squid Game: The Challenge. In its second week on the list, the action comedy series took home 9M views.

Deadline spoke to Heald, Hurwitz and Schlossberg about the ensemble cast’s crazy adventures, prosthetic privates and plans for Cobra Kai‘s final season.

DEADLINE: Congrats on the success of your second No. 1 series on Netflix. How are you guys feeling?

HAYDEN SCHLOSSBERG: Seeing audiences connect and respond to Obliterated has been awesome. Cobra Kai’s early global success was so special – it was amazing to see people around the world and here at home binge our take on a beloved iconic franchise. But we’ve always known that audiences are equally eager to fall in love with original characters and stories.

JOSH HEALD: Getting those stories off the ground these days without existing IP is extremely difficult, especially with a hard R rating that can’t market to four quadrants, so watching Obliterated shoot to No. 1 is especially rewarding. We’re thrilled that audiences are binging the show, telling their friends and really amplifying this moment.

DEADLINE: Why do you think the show has been such a hit with audiences in the US and worldwide?

JON HURWITZ: Audiences have been craving the return of R-rated raunchy comedies. Those same audiences also come out in droves year after year for explosive action movies with a high body count. Obliterated is an uncompromising merge and celebration of the two genres in a way that’s never been seen before on television — cinematic, high-octane action mixed with unflinching R-rated comedy storytelling. It’s a barrel of whiskey-soaked popcorn for everyone to enjoy.

DEADLINE: Did you have the idea for Obliterated before or after Cobra Kai?

HURWITZ: Obliterated was originally a feature idea that Hayden and I had probably 15 years ago, and we’ve been talking about doing it ever since. It was inspired by a few things like how we had the desire to come up with an action comedy idea that wasn’t just a pairing of wacky comedy stars but more about finding a comedic situation that lends itself to big action. At the time, we were thinking about these elite special forces units that carry out big dangerous operations to help save the world and what they do after they succeed in those kinds of operations… We decided to turn it into a TV series after Cobra Kai when we had the real estate to really dig into each character because we didn’t just want this to be the McKnight [Zano] and Ava [Hennig] show. We wanted this to be about an ensemble of heroes having their own sort of Hangover adventure.

SCHLOSSBERG: The idea for an Obliterated movie predates Cobra Kai but a lot of things got in the way of making that a reality. We always knew it would be high budget because of the action involved and it just never panned out as a feature. Then after the success of Cobra Kai on YouTube, we were looking for another thing to go out with and we realized that this idea would lend itself to a series because we’d be able to expand on the stories of each character beyond what we’d be able to do in a feature.

DEADLINE: This show goes beyond the main case with viewers learning a lot about the team, and you guys really pushed the envelope with wild parties and full frontals, giving us the full Vegas experience. After working on Cobra which is more wholesome family fare, did you have a blast going back to your roots?

HURWITZ: It was really a return to form for the three of us. Before Cobra Kai, we all had careers in R-rated comedy and that’s what we came up with and those were our comedic sensibilities. We’ve always liked going for the big reaction, as long as there was strong character behind it and and it was well constructed and didn’t feel fortuitous. We wanted everybody to have their Hangover adventure—a wild night in Vegas. We wanted to humanize these heroes and go beyond what you’d typically see on a network procedural and truly let them get loose. We weren’t gonna pull any punches.

DEADLINE: Did you worry about any backlash for what you guys did to Trunk (Terrence Terrell)? Wow. That was crazy!

SCHLOSSBERG: It wasn’t us, it was this terrorist organization, so we blame them. [Laughs] You end up in a room with a bunch of writers talking about what the most painful possible thing would be that you haven’t seen before and you end up with this scene. As Jon mentioned earlier, we come from that era of cinema where there are moments that create big audience reactions, whether that’s laughter or having to look away from the screen. We’ve seen those types of moments in Tarantino movies that just give you a jolt of horror or disgust. This character is getting tortured and we didn’t want to do something we’ve seen before. The audience will be relieved they didn’t have to see the long, unedited version we have of this scene.

DEADLINE: Let’s discuss C. Thomas Howell who played Haggerty, a character who was asleep most of the season and when awake, he’s either causing chaos or saving the world. What can you share about his casting?

HEALD: Haggerty was one of our favorite characters to talk about as we approached the casting process. There were times when we should have been more focused on another character perhaps but our minds wandered in terms of who was going to inhabit Haggerty because he’s just this very unique piece of comic relief. His is one of the most unique roles on this team and television. So we needed to find the absolute right person to play him. We had the idea for Tommy and we reached out wanting to hear how he would approach this character. From our initial meeting, we just saw it. He has this look that’s so not like the Tommy Howell we grew up with in the 80s. He’s evolved and he’s got this gravelly way that he delivers a line and the drawl that comes with it. He soulfully connected to Haggerty in a way that we were just bowled over…

In every scene he enters, he makes a choice that takes that character to another level right from the beginning of his entrance to disarming the bomb… And once he fell asleep, every choice he made while being asleep, was a physical choice. He ended up being this insanely talented physical comedian; being able to have a look of zen on his face while dangling from a helicopter.

DEADLINE: Did he do his stunts?

HEALD: Yes. The helicopter stunt was done very practically because it wasn’t actually flying. It was 40 or 50 feet up in the air on a platform and he’s hanging from probably the most uncomfortable harness you can imagine. But he’s able just to inhabit this beautiful dream state. For his arms swinging when he’s being carried by Trunk [Terrell], that was always Tommy over Terrence’s shoulder. We had a Haggerty double for some stunts, but we didn’t have a Haggerty dummy, which we probably should’ve had. He put himself through the discomfort of allowing his body to flop and fall and do things that we hadn’t seen done since Weekend at Bernie’s—and he killed it.

HURWITZ: He fully embraced the character. Since our first phone call with him, he said it’s a role unlike anything he’s ever played before. He said this character is so out there, which he embraced so thoroughly. In the first episode, you see him fully frontal. We had prepared a costly prosthetic for him, and we worked everything through with the intimacy coordinator and talked through everything he was gonna do. He signed the waiver. And the morning of the shoot, he calls me up and he says, “You know what, if I’m doing this, I’m doing this. What am I doing with a prosthetic? I’m just going for it.” So I’m like, “Great, that’s even better.” We were all excited because it’s better for the show if he’s doing it that way. We had to sort things out with Sony and Netflix and make sure a lawyer amended his contract but within an hour, he was all good to go. We’re used to people getting cold feet last minute but he wanted to move forward. It was great.

DEADLINE: I sure hope Terrence opted to wear a prosthetic.

HURWITZ: He did wear a prosthetic.

HEALD: We would never put Terrence in that situation. There was a lot of manhandling and prodding. And it’s not just Terrence but also Tobias, who plays the sadistic Ehren, he has a lot of interaction with Trunk’s situation. The attitude was always to make sure that was a prosthetic and that we weren’t asking somebody to be put in that vulnerable situation.

DEADLINE: The girl power on the show was so fun to watch. What can you share about working with Shelley, Paola, Kimi and Alyson Gorske, who also becomes a big part of the story?

HEALD: We wanted a team that felt authentic and we felt like each of the male and female characters were believable to be part of that team and badass in their own ways. We’ve loved Gomez [Lázaro] being part of a trio with McKnight and Trunk; these are three best friends and she just happens to be a woman but they all have a similar kind of mentality. Ava is the brains of the operation strategically but also has all the training that comes with that position. Maya is one of the best hackers in the world who can pull off anything. Even Anastasia is amazing. We wanted this whole team to be badass. These are people tasked with saving Las Vegas from a nuclear attack.

DEADLINE: What would a Season 2 look like? Would they take on a new case?

SCHLOSSBERG: When we conceived of the series, we thought each season would be its own action movie or R-rated comedy. Just like with Diehard or Mission Impossible, you’d have a new threat, potentially new villains and potentially a new party city as a backdrop. We love the idea of this being the action-comedy version of White Lotus where all these party cities court our show to come there. Because our inspiration was always those movies that we grew up with, we felt we should end [each season] with a closed-ended story. When you have heroism, you really want heroism as a theme, so you want to see your characters succeed at the end. We could do twists on that, but ultimately, we wanted that feel of like an entry into the action genre. Our hope is people tune in and they end up loving the characters and the team so much they want to see them go on another adventure.

DEADLINE: Before you go, can you share an update on where you’re at with the final season of Cobra Kai?

HEALD: We are in the writers’ room working feverishly and we have been since the WGA strike ended. We are thrilled that the SAG-AFTRA strike has also ended. We are going back into production after the new year on the biggest, boldest season we’ve done yet.

DEADLINE: Do you think we’ll be able to see it in 2024?

SCHLOSSBERG: With the only caveat being that nothing else happens in the industry. That’s the hope to get this out ASAP for the fans who have been waiting.

DEADLINE: Any updates on the possibility of having Hilary Swank making an appearance?

HURWITZ: We are fans of Hilary Swank.

SCHLOSSBERG: Anyone from the Miyagi-verse could potentially be in the final season.

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