Sans Titre

It might seem strange that Fox drama “Shots Fired” has such a presence at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered, but it turns out that co-creator Gina Prince-Bythewood didn’t always think of it as a television series. Star Sanaa Lathan, Stephan James, and Tristan Wilds stopped by the Variety Studio presented by Orville Redenbacher’s at the Sundance Film Festival to talk about the buzzy new series.

“Gina pitched it as a film, a 10-hour film,” said James.

“On set, she would not let us say, ‘Okay, in this episode’ — ‘No, Sanaa, it’s hour. It’s hour two,'” laughed Lathan.

Added James, “I hadn’t done a whole lot of television before. My whole thing was in film. So to see it here at Sundance now is really an incredible thing. It’s like we did exactly what we said we were going to do. We were going to make this 10-hour film.”