House of David creator and EP Jon Erwin spoke to ComingSoon about adapting the David versus Goliath fight in the new Prime Video series. Erwin spoke about the show’s Game of Thrones-like palace intrigue and the joy of bringing the story to life on-screen. The show will be available on Prime Video on February 27, 2025, with the first three episodes premiering.
“House of David tells the story of the ascent of the biblical figure, David, who eventually becomes the most renowned and celebrated king of Israel. The series follows the once-mighty King Saul as he falls victim to his own pride. At the direction of God, the prophet Samuel anoints an unlikely, outcast teenager as the new king. As Saul loses his power over his kingdom, David finds himself on a journey to discover and fulfill his destiny, navigating love, loss, and violence in the court of the very man he’s destined to replace. As one leader falls, another must rise,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: House of David builds up to the David versus Goliath fight, and it’s one of the most iconic parts of the Bible, so everybody knows how it ends – almost literally the whole world. So what was the challenge in making that still an interesting story to tell with the conclusion known by everybody?
Jon Erwin: Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ve been working on each episode and then each segment within each episode, and so I have not even had time — ’cause it’s television — to kind of zoom out and just watch the episodes as a viewer, one right after the other. So I hope you enjoyed ’em. I look forward to that process.
David and Goliath… I mean, the Bible is obviously the bestselling book of all time, and it has these moments, and it has these big events, and many of those big events have been portrayed in one way or another, whether it’s the parting of the Red Sea, or the Life of Christ, or the Crucifixion, by iconic filmmakers. When it comes to David and Goliath, there really hasn’t been much over the course of our industry to portray that event.
So, I really wanted to give myself, as a fan and the audience, the best portrayal possible of that event. And you know, television really gives you the opportunity as opposed to the films I’ve made of really exploring the story and the characters over a much longer period of time. And so that was fun. You’re into crafting every detail of it.
Every now and then, Michael, who plays David, and I would stop and be like, “Wait a minute we’re doing David and Goliath,” [laughs] Just, like, as fanboys. That’s incredible. I tell people I’m just one viewer, but I am the first viewer, and I love that fact.
I love that moment and that portrayal, and I think it’s emotional and it’s powerful. Michael does a great job. And so just really trying to do that moment justice and try to really put the audience in the moment of what would it actually be like for a teenage boy with no armor to confront an entire army and a giant leading them. What would that moment be stepping out on that battlefield?
I hope the audience feels a little [of] what I felt when I first saw it and then filming it.
One of the surprises for me watching this show is just how much of a political drama it winds up being, almost like Game of Thrones. I thought it was such a natural fit in retrospect. What was most interesting about exploring that time of this transition between the time of kings and the time of God’s judges? What did you like most about that?
There’s themes that are resonant and that are easy to empathize with. Saul is a leader. Power is his drug and he can’t give it up. And he’s a great dad and he’s had a sort of a great run, but he can’t give up the throne. And this young boy has been anointed in his place by the very same person that anointed him.
So you have that tension so that palace intrigue and then really studying the material and realizing that Saul represented this transition from this time of priests, judges and seers, of which Samuel, played by Stephen Lang, was the last of those. And then Saul was the first of the kings. Yet he did not steward his power well. And so that was fascinating to me.
Really, what was illuminating to me was the title of the show, House of David, came from the oldest relic ever discovered related to the Bible. It was the stele that read House of David. 9th Century BC, it was dated to. And I felt that was interesting. These houses were just pitted against each other, you know, and I wanted to humanize the House of Saul as much as we did the House of David.
I found that to be a very interesting aspect of the story. Even the bond between Jonathan and David, that’s just so interesting, you know? And it was a fun thing to develop.
