Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg never meant for a Homecoming TV show to happen.
When they created Homecoming, the podcast from Gimlet Media, their only intent was to make a great fictional podcast, to tell an inventive story in the burgeoning audio fiction medium. And, to their credit, they did. Homecoming was a hit among critics — such as they are in the podcast world — and fans. Horowitz and Bloomberg also, inadvertently, made something even bigger in the eyes of television studios: a potential franchise. Two years after the podcast dropped, its television counterpart premiered on Amazon Prime.
Podcasts have been adapted for television before, but Homecoming is something different. It has Sam Esmail, one of the hottest directors in the industry, behind the camera, and Julia Roberts in front of it. It premiered to robust critical approval and earned three Golden Globe nominations. But the transformation of an audio-only experience into a high-profile television show…
