‘Sons of Anarchy’ creator Kurt Sutter has ambitious plans for his outlaw motorcycle drama that include a prequel and even a possible sequel…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
‘Sons of Anarchy’ creator Kurt Sutter is currently working on the first spinoff from his ultra popular FX series called ‘Mayans MC’ but that’s not the only plans he has for the future.
Sutter appeared on Tom Arnold’s podcast recently and revealed a long list of plans for the ‘Sons of Anarchy’ mythology that will hopefully produce a prequel and potentially even a sequel one day in the future.
According to Sutter, he always envisioned ‘Sons of Anarchy’ as ‘four chapters’ with the seven season run of the show as the first chapter and ‘Mayans MC’ as the second chapter to the story.
“I have a sense of ‘Sons’ being four chapters. If ‘Sons’ was the first chapter then I see the Mayans as the second chapter. It’s present day, it’s after the death of Jax Teller,” Sutter described when talking about the new show.
‘Mayans MC’ has already been picked up for a pilot by FX, and if the first episode is a success then the show would then move into development for a full season.
Considering the success ‘Sons of Anarchy’ had on FX as the most watched show in the history of the network, it’s hard to imagine ‘Mayans MC’ won’t get picked up for a full season order.
“Here’s my plan with the Mayans — it is a Latino based club started by (Marcus) Alvarez and my sense is that if there are charters everywhere, especially Southern California, it’s going to be Mexican influenced. If there’s a Mayan charter in Florida, then perhaps it’s Cuban influenced. But I co-wrote the pilot with a tremendous writer Elgin James, who’s a little bit of a melting pot of several different nationalities and an outlaw in his own right and really I think we came up with a great story,” Sutter said.
Sutter plans to direct the first episode of ‘Mayans MC’ and serve as a co-show runner for the freshman season before handing over the reins to a different show runner and writers for the rest of the series.
Sutter would remain an executive producer while likely helping out with the overall story being told on ‘Mayans MC’ but otherwise he would be handing over control to a new team of writers and producers for the show.
“My plan is to do this — honor the mythology that a lot of talented people spent seven years creating so that we transition from that mythology into this new mythology and my hope is to hire a creative staff that’s based in that culture,” Sutter said.
“So that ultimately my plan if we’re lucky enough to continue that I would co-run the first season with someone and then hand off the show to primarily a creative team of people of color.”
Sutter also revealed that ‘Mayans MC’ would deal with the last events in ‘Sons of Anarchy’, including Jax Teller’s actions, which left a large body count before he exited in the finale.
“We’re going to play the reality of that last day and the events that happened with who he killed that day and the impact and perhaps the trickle down that may have had on Northern Cali. So it won’t have a direct impact on the Mayans but we make reference to it in the pilot so that we play the reality of it,” Sutter said.
“Emilio Rivera (who played Mayans’ president Marcus Alvarez) is a great guy, his character is kind of the glue that holds the two mythologies together so we make reference to that last day and perhaps the impact it may have had.”
SONS OF ANARCHY PREQUEL
If ‘Sons of Anarchy’ was the first chapter and ‘Mayans MC’ is the second chapter, Sutter says that the third chapter is the long rumored prequel that has been teased even before the original series went off the air.
Sutter referenced the creation of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club numerous times throughout the show’s history with Jax Teller’s father serving as one of the founding members after he returned home from the war in Vietnam.
Sutter says that the prequel would explore Teller’s journey back from Vietnam as well as the creation of the Sons of Anarchy from the beginning until the first nine members officially founded the club.
Sutter also mentioned John Teller’s manuscript — ‘The Life and Death of Sam Crow: How the Sons of Anarchy Lost Their Way’ — which played a large part in the mythology of the show after his son Jax Teller discovered the book during the first season. Sutter has long planned to write out the entire manuscript as an accessory to the ‘Sons of Anarchy’ mythology.
“I think at some point we’ll find a way to shine a little light on perhaps on John Teller’s manuscript, if the Mayans, if we’re lucky enough to continue and then what I would do is not directly but I would use that as a potential launching point to do the prequel,” Sutter explained.
“The First 9 — it would begin in Vietnam with John Teller and Piney Winston and it would be about them coming back to America and ideally to do each episode have a new member join but end it at the end of that so that maybe at that point Gemma’s there but it’s before Jax is born. I don’t want to step on the mythology that we know but we kind of lay track to the beginning and then stop.”
The prequel, according to Sutter, wouldn’t be a new ‘Sons of Anarchy’ series but instead a limited run of episodes specifically telling the story behind the creation of the outlaw motorcycle club.
“That to me is a one off, it’s like 10 episodes,” Sutter said. “It’s not a series. Whether we do that between seasons on the Mayans, I’m not sure but that would sort of happen sort of tangentially to that.”
SONS OF ANARCHY SEQUEL
Perhaps the biggest piece of news revealed by Sutter in the interview was the first mention of a potential sequel to ‘Sons of Anarchy’ at some point down the road assuming both ‘Mayans MC’ and the prequel are successful.
Sutter says in a perfect world he would like to explore what happens to Jax Teller’s sons, Abel and Thomas, after they discover who their father was and what he did during his life.
In the finale of ‘Sons of Anarchy’, Jax sent his sons off to live with his ex-wife Wendy while telling his friend Nero to make sure she tells them exactly who he was — a criminal and a killer — so they don’t wander down that same path.
From the sound of things, Sutter wants to find out what happens when Abel and Thomas find out about Jax and the ramifications of a sorted Teller family history.
“Perhaps thinking ahead at some point, if any of us are still alive, that there might be a series of events that takes us down the line into the future that perhaps sets up some kind of dynamic for Jax’s sons to become aware of who his dad was and things like that,” Sutter said.
“That for me is the dream quartet if you will.”
Obviously at this point, Sutter is mostly focused on launching ‘Mayans MC’, which is expected to go into production later this year for the pilot episode before a decision would be made about a potential series.
Sutter’s plans will definitely serve as good news for long time fans of ‘Sons of Anarchy’ who have been clamoring for more ever since the show came to an end in 2014.
