Trivia / Foundation (2021)

• Died During Production: Technically, Asimov never finished writing the Foundation series before he died. According to David Goyer, Apple made him map out the entire show from beginning to end to avoid an ending similar to a certain other epic television franchise.
• Mythology Gag: Just before Salvor's departure from Terminus, her mother says the people want to elect her Mayor of Terminus, the position held by the original Salvor Hardin in the book.
• No Stunt Double: Lee Pace trained for months to do Cleon XVII's fight scenes himself. He also proposed that Day be naked during the assassination attempt.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Ben Daniels is openly gay and his character Bel Riose is married to a man.
• Saved from Development Hell:
  • New Line Cinema had spent $1.5 million dollars to develop a film Trilogy for Foundation in 1998. Their failure to complete the project led to Peter Jackson's production of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In 2008, the company announced that Bob Shaye and Micheal Lynne would be co-producers.
  • Columbia Pictures purchased the privilege to produce a movie from an auction in 2009, and contracted Roland Emmerich as director and co-producer. The other producer chosen at the time was Micheal Wimer. Two years later, Danta Harper was hired on to the project.
  • HBO allowed a leak in 2014 that Jonathan Nolan would be writing a television series based on the Trilogy.
  • Skydance Media refused comment to an article in 2017 that they were purchasing the rights to a television series based on The Foundation Trilogy. Then, in 2018, another article revealed that they would be working with Apple.
  • The first trailer from Apple TV+ includes executive producer David Goyer saying that people have been trying to make a Live-Action Adaptation of Foundation for fifty years, and Apple has finally done it.
• On-Set Injury: Ben Daniels actually broke a rib while shooting the fight between Bel Riose and Cleon XVII, and fought through the pain in order to make sure it went off without a hitch.
• Playing Their Own Twin:
  • Terrence Mann, Lee Pace, and Cassian Bilton each play multiple versions of the cloned Cleon I.
  • Jared Harris plays Hari Seldon, as well as the two versions of Hari Seldon's consciousness who appear postmortem — one in the Vault, the other in Gaal/Raych's escape ship.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Terrence Mann, Lee Pace, and Cassian Bilton all look quite similar, particularly Pace and Bilton, making it easier to believe that they're all clones of the same man. Even still, it was never going to be perfect. Pace is obviously taller than the other two, and Bilton has a noticeable cleft palate scar on his lip.
• What Could Have Been: An epilogue scene for the Terminus arc in season 2 was scripted, but never filmed for budget reasons. Among other things, it would have acted as a capstone to Poly Verisof's character development.
• You Look Familiar: Alexander Siddig was cast for a role in Season 3 after having previously played the Imperial prosecuter in the pilot episode.

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