In May 2008, after Michael Dawson had been written off of Lost for the second time, Harold Perrineau opened up about his frustrations with the show’s handling of his character. Speaking to TV Guide’s Shawna Malcom, the actor underscored how badly he thought the show had served the relationship between Michael and Walt. Perrineau argued that the show’s treatment of the character perpetuated a pernicious stereotype about absentee Black fathers.

“I wanted Michael and Walt to have a happy ending. I was hoping Michael would get it together and actually want to be a father to his kid and try to figure out a way to get back [home],” Perrineau told Malcom. “This is [the producers’] story. If I were writing it, I would write it differently.”

The 2008 interview with Perrineau has become a sort of Rosetta stone for understanding the betrayal many Lost fans of color feel around how the show came to tell stories about non-white characters. Since Lost ended, several people of color involved in making the series have spoken openly about both the show’s lackluster storytelling around non-white characters and the often racist experiences they had behind the scenes of the show, most notably in Maureen Ryan’s 2023 book Burn It Down. While Lost was on the air, however, Perrineau’s TV Guide interview was essentially one of the few times an actor involved in such a huge hit show criticized it even mildly.*

Jordan “J.J.” Perry has been working on The Killer’s Game for over a decade.

“The movie [production] came to me about 10 or 11 years ago to be a stunt coordinator,” Perry tells Inverse. “They came to me again three years ago to be the second unit director.” Then, in 2023, the rights shifted to Lionsgate, and J.J., fresh off his directorial debut with Day Shift, was offered a seat in the director’s chair.

In another stroke of good luck, The Killer’s Game was able to film during the Hollywood strikes that ground most movie productions to a halt in 2023 by going outside the system and agreeing to union demands. All of a sudden, he was able to cast his dream ensemble, which includes everyone from movie stars like Dave Bautista and Ben Kingsley to action icons like Scott Adkins.

“Because we had a SAG waiver during that strike, everybody was available,” Perry says. “So they just dropped in on me. They dropped in on me hard. So that's how it worked out. We shot it in 42 days, which is very fast for a movie like that.”

The result, The Killer’s Game, is playing in theaters now. And it might just launch a new cinematic franchise, if J.J. Perry gets his way.