Lots of WWE Unreal Netflix News From The Director!

Fightful's Joel Pearl and Jeremy Lambert spoke to Chris Weaver, the director of Netflix's WWE Unreal.

Weaver said that he was very fresh to pro wrestling and storylines when starting this project, but had someone with him that was very familiar. He knew very little about the workings of wrestling, but learned a ton while working on the show. One of the biggest thing he realized was that WWE treats it like a weekly episodic drama show.

He's not heard too much from WWE about the response, but said that they seem happy with it, as do Netflix and NFL Films. He doesn't use social media much, but was expecting a big response from the wrestling audience.

He said there was some things they couldn't do too much on, like Jade Cargill while she was injured. But they particularly wanted to focus more on Demiti Bennett and Phil Brooks than Rhea Ripley and CM Punk, and hoped they achieved that.

Weaver said that with any show like Unreal, Quarterback or the like, it's important to be able to appeal to non-wrestling fans. However, there was someone there that kept them honest with the stories. Chris Weaver said that when you get into explaining storylines, things can get murky, so they tried to streamline it. The non-fan was in their mindset, but they didn't want to alienate avid fans.

Weaver also spoke about the music invovled in the show, which he said he was very proud of. He also spoke about the location scouting.

Weaver thinks they captured 900 hours of footage, but nothing specific comes to mind that they left out that they wanted to. They always intentionally capture a ton of footage, because it's better to have too much than not enough.

The Chris Park/Abyss producing segment where he's freaking out over Seth Rollins and CM Punk going over time was a scene that Weaver loves. He, like most everyone, put over Park as a person. He also said Michael Hayes is a great television performer, character and interview, and said that his interview with Hayes is one of his favorite he's ever done.

Weaver said he assumed Cody Rhodes was going to turn heel at WWE Elimination Chamber, and he found out that it was going to be the Rock 15 minutes before it happen. He said that he interviewed Bruce Prichard, Ed Koskey and Triple H in order. He felt their interviews were so good that they were able to piece the story together with just those.

There was a great explanation of why it was that they have people on the show mention their ring name, government name and nicknames. He said that while filming, he heard Paul Levesque referred to as Paul, Triple H, Hunter, Trips, among other things. He thought that clarifying for a new audience would be a great intro.

He didn't commit to the future of the show but said that he and NFL films are hoping to keep going. He called it a great change of pace.

The full interview is up for tier 2 subscribers. WWE Unreal is now on Netflix.