With the comic book series, BRZRKR, approaching its final issues and having BRZRKR Vol. 2 now in stores, I recently got to speak with co-writers Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt, and artist Ron Garney about the popular BOOM! Studios series. During the interview, they talked about why issue 12 will be double sized, why they’re selective about what they incorporate from the fans, what people would be surprised to learn about the making of the comic, and the status of the two-season animated series. In addition, Reeves revealed he’s thinking about directing the live-action BRZRKR movie!

If you haven’t read BRZRKR, the 12-issue series follows an immortal warrior, known as Berzerker, as he fights his way through the ages. But after wandering the world for centuries, he may have finally found a refuge – working for the U.S. government to fight the battles too violent and too dangerous for anyone else. In exchange, B. will be granted the one thing he desires – the truth about his endless blood-soaked existence…and how to end it.

Watch what Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt and Ron Garney had to say in the player above, or you can read our conversation below. BRZRKR also features the work of Bill Crabtree (colors), Clem Robins (letters), and Rafael Grampá (character designs and covers).

COLLIDER: Gentlemen. It's been a year. How are you doing?

RON GARNEY: Hey, has it been that long already? Wow.

Yeah, when I was prepping for this interview, I'm like, it's been literally a year, which is crazy. I have a ton of questions, but I want to thank Keanu for coming out during my Comic-Con panel.

KEANU REEVES: Thanks, man. It was fun.

Jumping into the why I get to talk to you guys, for fans of the comic, what do you think would actually surprise them to learn about the making of the comic behind the scenes?

REEVES: How much Ron suffers.

MATT KINDT: I think they assume that.

GARNEY: How much you go out of your way to make me suffer. These guys are sadistic, slave drivers.

KINDT: I thought we were just torturing the character.

GARNEY: Just kidding.

REEVES: It's a lot of work for him and I think, hopefully, Ron finds it interesting, just the different styles, the different genres, the different, the kind of width of the emotional bandwidth, going from violence to love, to grief, to mystery, to yearning. And then traveling through history, right? Through all of the costumes, animals, the settings. It's a big show.

GARNEY: No yet, believe it or not, I sleep right over there in my studio. I have a bed right over there because sometimes I have to get right up and get right to it. So I sleep right there.

KINDT: Why are you sleeping?

GARNEY: Four hours

Well, I think Ron's trying to let everything subconsciously enter the brain when he is sleeping in the room. That, that's my takeaway.

KINDT: Okay. We'll allow it.

GARNEY: Right. That's why I think Keanu sits in front of a blank background all the time. Cause he's absorbing things from the universe. All these ideas. That's what I try to do in my studio. Sorry, go ahead.

How much are you guys looking on social media, reading what people are saying, and taking what the feedback is from the fans to possibly incorporate into the writing or whatever you might be doing on the creative side?

REEVES: I don't know about you Ron. Matt doesn't read reviews. I tend to read the, I'll read like four on per episode and I try to, or issue, I try to read the really good ones and then the really bad ones.

KINDT: Guess what? I don't read them, but guess I get them read to me. I don't.

REEVES: And Steven, in a way, it's like, because we're writing and creating as we go along, we really let each issue, we try in the form of it to answer some things and then propose new things and try to keep it propulsive. And definitely I've taken in notes of like, okay, so where else can we go? What might be interesting, what's interesting to us? We can only do what our taste is, but we can take into, I'm trying to think of a specific idea of what we've internalized and from feedback.

GARNEY: Yeah, you know, just to expand on that for a second, Steve. Is that, in the reviews, a lot of the times you have to decide, well, when you read them, there's certain criticisms that you might read that are only particularly criticisms to the person making the critique. It's not a critique of the writing. It's a critique of, I read one recently, not long ago, about the way I drew a hand. And so it's like, you know, you have to pick and choose the things that you think are valid and the things that you think aren't. I'm always up for any valid criticism that's constructive. If it's not constructive, I don't really want to have too much to do with it because sometimes it can get very acerbic, and I'd rather it not be, because if somebody wants us to take what they're saying into consideration, then it should be constructive criticism. So I don't venture too much into that territory, but here and there, when I do, I take what I think is good and what I don't think is valid, I leave that to the side.

KINDT: I think the best thing you can take from reviews to me is seeing what we're doing is landing or not, or people are understanding what we're doing or if there's a disconnect between what our intent was and then what people are getting out of it. That's good to me because it's like, oh, well maybe we weren't clear enough here. Or maybe that didn't land quite right and we have to be, you know what I mean, there's things in reviews that are helpful from a creative standpoint. But yeah, as far as drawing hands, hands are hard to draw.

GARNEY: Yeah.

KINDT: I try not to do them. I draw hands?

I definitely want to know where are you right now in the writing and drawing process in terms of future issues?

REEVES: So issue 10's out and Ron is drawing issue 11 and Matt and I are writing issue 12, which has been really cool, and Boom, they're letting us do a double issue.

GARNEY: I was just going to say I finished 11, actually.

REEVES: Well, you've got some notes.

GARNEY: No, I'm sure I do.

KINDT: Very few. Very few.

GARNEY: I look so forward to those.

Issue 12 is something I actually wanted to ask you guys about. How much has it sort of been exactly what you expected, and how has it changed along the way in terms of you where you ultimately end up?

REEVES: Yeah, so yeah, we're writing it. First of all, we thought we had so much. Boom set out from the very beginning it was a 12-issue limited series. So we knew that going in, that we had to tell this story in 12 issues. And then as soon as they said yes to that, we said yes to that. We were like, can we have a double issue to start it? And they were like, okay. As we've been developing, there's so much story that we want to tell, but also have the space to do the emotions of what's going on. So it's not just plot. We were like, can we have a double issue at the end? And then they were like, yeah. And then we were writing it, and we're like, can we have two more? We actually wanted eight more pages.

KINDT: We asked for 8

GARNEY: The two pages kills me.

REEVES: They gave us two extra pages. And no, I mean I think we had an overview, Matt talks about there was always a kind of end, so we knew where we were starting and where we were ending, but how are we getting there, and what is the ending or the end of the 12 issues? We're still kind of cooking up because we always kind of take in the last issue that we wrote and then what do we want to feel and see and what would be cool to do next?

I'm very excited about the fact that you guys are working on a movie and an animated series for the property. I know at Comic-Con you announced a two-season order for the animated series. Can you talk about where you are in the actual development of the animated series in terms of when people might see it, and how much is the animated series going to follow the comic book, and how much is it going to be its own thing?

REEVES: Right now we're talking to a Japanese anime company, and we had some preliminary meetings, and we're waiting on them to come back and tell us what version of BRZRKR they want to do. For me, it's here are a couple of rules. The rules of the character can't change. Born 80,000 years ago, cursed with a violence origin story, but after that you can do whatever you want. So in terms of the Japanese anime company, we're talking to IG and seeing what they would find interesting, what they propose. So we're letting, you know creatively what do they want to do.

The other day, Mattson, who's writing your screenplay for the feature, posted a screenshot of the script and the end and fans got very excited. Have you guys read the script?

REEVES: He did? I didn't know he did that.

GARNEY: Yeah, yeah, the other day he did.

REEVES: What?

GARNEY: Yeah. It said cut to black. The end.

KINDT: I didn't know what it was for though.

GARNEY: I knew what it was.

KINDT: Yeah, haven't read it.

Cause then he posted another photo of the title page or whatever. Basically, he's saying that he finished his draft of the script. So I was just curious.

REEVES: Yeah, he did. I got it yesterday or two days ago. I haven't read it yet.

Have you guys started thinking about who might direct this or is that still early days?

REEVES: It's early days.

Is there any chance, Keanu, that you could direct it?

REEVES: There is.

Obviously, you have directed before. I like Ron's reaction. What do you put the percentage chance that you might direct it at?

REEVES: 33%.

I think it might be higher, but can you talk about is the challenge of starring and directing in something like this, something that really excites you? Does it make you nervous?

REEVES: I know how it's a lot of work, but the film that I directed, The Man of Tai Chi, was born, I became the director because I was part of the writing process, and I didn't want to hand it over. I was like, oh, okay. I have to direct this. I'm not quite there yet on BRZRKR. I have to read the script, but I also, I'm interested in having a collaborator and what they could bring to it.

Ron, did you want to add something? I saw your face.

GARNEY: Well, I'm just thinking, man. Get that percentage up, man. I mean, I think it's all you. You should be doing it. Clint Eastwood does it. I mean, you can do it, I think you, it's your thing.

REEVES: Are there any other questions? You got any more questions?

GARNEY: Oh come on man.

I was going to say, I'm out of time. Thank you for your time.