Metro News has an interview with Rob Tapert - 15 January 2010:
When the promotional trailer for the new series Spartacus: Blood and Sand was released during San Diego Comic Con, many viewers were surprised by the amount of, well, blood -- and naked flesh.
Along with plenty of slow-motion spurting arteries, there are some quick -- and some not-so-quick -- flashes of nearly ever inch of the cast, including Andy Witfield (as the titular gladiator) and Xena: Warrior Princess and Battlestar Galactica vet Lucy Lawless.
"(The network) wanted to do something that's groundbreaking and boundary-pushing," explains series executive producer Rob Tapert, who put the show together along with fellow executive producer Sam Raimi (himself no stranger to buckets of blood) and writer Stephen S. DeKnight, who cut his teeth writing for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
