Co-creator Joe Bennett talks about the origins of one of 2023's best sci-fi series and what might be on the horizon

In the media landscape of 2024, Scavengers Reign feels like nothing short of a wonder. Originally conceived as a 20-minute short by co-creators Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, the series was greenlit for a 12-episode season for Max (then called HBO Max) and slowly entered production for several years before premiering last fall. With its emphasis on visual storytelling, phantasmagorical imagery, and heady themes of survival and symbiosis, the most obvious question is simple: How did the creators of Scavengers Reign go about arriving at its peculiar sci-fi universe?

"The main premise [of the original short] was that we followed these characters [as they] make a process through nature, and you see this Rube Goldberg-like process of cause and effect, trial and error all the time," Bennett told Polygon .” It had no dialogue, so it was all visual storytelling. […] Gradually we began to lean into the nature of the planet Vesta and what it could be.”

What emerged from the burgeoning seed of an idea was a densely imagined world of exotic fauna, unfathomable native life forms, and a vast, interconnected ecology of creatures that co-existed with one another. "[The idea was] if every character uses these organisms as some sort of functionality, it has one thing throughout the show that's consistent," Bennett said. "It's never just that the characters are at the center. […] These characters are struggling through so much inner turmoil and psychological stress, and seeing that against the backdrop of this planet that is in many ways unforgiving—that dichotomy was always important to keep in mind.”