Criminal Series Set for 2026; Phillips "Did a Ton of Art": Brubaker
· BCPosted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: criminal
Criminal Series Set for 2026; Phillips "Did a Ton of Art": Brubaker
Ed Brubaker offered some interesting updates on Prime Video's adaptation of his and Sean Phillips's Criminal, confirmed to premiere this year.
Published Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:37:08 -0500
by Ray Flook
|
Comments
Article Summary
- Ed Brubaker says Prime Video’s Criminal is set to premiere later in 2026, ending months of release-date mystery.
- Brubaker revealed Criminal added new scenes and flashbacks in additional photography to deepen Leo and Ricky’s story.
- Prime Video is reportedly “super excited” about Criminal and planning a major rollout with a big Emmy push.
- Sean Phillips created a ton of new Criminal artwork for the series, including art featured in the title sequence.
We had a feeling that some good news might be on the way regarding Prime Video's Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Monster: The Ed Gein Story) and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Ponies)-starring series adaptation of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's multi-Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series Criminal when an image from the series was shown on stage during the streaming service's Upfronts presentation back in May. But there are no better updates than those from the creative teams themselves. Case in point: Brubaker checked in with SKTCHD's Off Panel podcast host David Harper to cover a wide range of topics, but the episode kicked off with Harper and Brubaker diving into insights about the series. You can check out the complete episode above (including a great discussion of how television production has changed), and we have highlights below. A couple of spoiler highlights: Brubaker confirms that the series will hit "later this year," Phillips "did a ton of art for the show," and Prime Video is positioning it for "a big Emmy push."
Brubaker Confirms "Criminal" in 2026: Between "pretty much just working non-stop," not having "an internet presence," and not going to "comic conventions very often," Brubaker was able to avoid the fans asking when the series would premiere. "I especially was like, I'm not going to a convention until this has been announced because it would just be thousands of people asking me the same question that I'm not allowed to answer. But I do have an air date now. So it is coming later this year."
Brubaker on Filming Additional Scenes: "After I finished the show, I had to do some re-shoots last year on a couple parts. And well, not re-shoots. I had to do additional scenes and stuff, just to flesh some stuff out. Everybody was loving it, but they wanted to explore a couple different things. And so we had like a week of re-shoots in LA that I mean, I say re-shoots, additional photography, right? Because it was all new stuff. We didn't re-shoot anything we shot. It was just adding more stuff and there was some flashbacks that were in "Coward" that were just a little too minimal. And so, we needed to make all the sort of young Leo, young Ricky stuff a little bit bigger. And so I had to bring all those actors back, which was kind of a drag cuz one of them was, I mean, they were both a year older, and one of them actually looked quite bigger. So it was like very challenging to shoot [laughter] him and make him not stand out."
Brubaker on Prime Video Being "Super Excited" by What It's Seen: "They're super excited about it. And I've just been talking to the marketing people in the last week or two about the big rollout for it. And I know it's going to get like a big Emmy push because they're so happy with like Emilia [Clarke] and Charlie's [Hunnam] performances and just the level of quality of the show.
Brubaker on Phillips' Artwork Being Incorporated Into the Show: "Yeah, Shawn did a ton of art for the show. Like, all the art in the title sequence for the show is by Sean, and, yeah, it's pretty exciting," Brubaker teased, adding that he can't wait to be able to discuss the series more and even show a few minutes of it to his friends.
The cast for the upcoming series includes Hunnam, Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under), Luke Evans (Nine Perfect Strangers), Adria Arjona (Hit Man, Andor), Pat Healy (Better Call Saul), Taylor Selé (BMF), John Hawkes (HBO's True Detective: Night Country), Gus Halper (Rustin), Logan Browning (Dear White People), Kadeem Hardison (The Chi), Aliyah Camacho (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Michael Mando (Better Call Saul), Marvin Jones III (Halo), Michael Xavier (Wild Cards), and Dominic Burgess (Palm Royale), Garrett Hedlund (Tulsa King), Chris Diamantopoulos (The Boys in the Boat), Lawrence Kao (Walker: Independence), Kyle Bradley Davis (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Aina Brei'yon (Dark Matter), Robert Lee Hart (Chicago PD), Katie Stevens (The Bold Type), and John Pyper-Ferguson (Suits).
Both Brubaker & Phillips are set to executive produce, with Brubaker penning the pilot script and serving as co-showrunner – alongside acclaimed crime fiction author Jordan Harper (Hightown, Gotham, The Mentalist). In addition, writer-directors Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck (Captain Marvel, Masters of the Air) have been tapped to direct the first four episodes and executive-produce.
Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!