WGN America Cracks the “100 Code”

When Academy Award-winning producer Bobby Moresco was approached about making a movie based on Irish crime writer Ken Bruen’s book “Merrick,” he thought the novel was “brilliant.”

“But I didn’t think it was a movie I’d want to try and be involved in,” Moresco told Cablefax . “But there was a character in his books that I thought would be great to build a television show around.”

Enter crime thriller “100 Code,” which makes its debut on WGN America on Tuesday at 10pm. The character that sparked it is NYPD detective Tommy Conley (Dominic Monaghan), who finds himself in Stockholm working with a detective on a serial killer investigation with a possible link to the US.

This is no bromance though, with the Swedish investigator (played by the late Michael Nyqvist) not a fan of anything American, including his partner. Off camera it was a different story though.

“Michael, God rest his soul, was the nicest man on the face of the earth. [Nyqvist and Monaghan] are both such great guys and both so professional that they became friends very quickly,” explained Moresco. “I directed the first couple episodes and they kept leaning on the friendship. I had to keep saying, ‘Guys, you’re not friends. Stop it.’ Once we got past that… they were able to tap into some really cool stuff. That’s the only hurdle we had to get over.”

Moresco has experience on both the big and small screen, directing and producing shows such as “Millennium” and co-producing the film “Million Dollar Baby” and sharing an original screenplay Oscar with Paul Haggis for the film “Crash.” For Moresco, the best thing about a TV series is the chance to really explore a character over 12 hours. “It’s about having the time not to rush through things and getting to the other side of an argument that you might not be able to get to at the end of a movie.”