A Quora What If Question Gets Optioned For Television

In case you hadn’t heard, the things you say online could have real-life consequences. But for one user on the public Q&A forum Quora Inc., that consequence could be a television series.

The show’s premise came out of a simple question: “If every state of the USA declared war against each other, which would win?”

The most popular answer to that question, however, was anything but simple. Quora user Jon Davis put some serious thought into his answer, and what followed was a roughly 7,300-word answer that included fictional diary entries, economic analysis, and natural resource maps.

Emmy-winning producer Josh C. Kline is currently in the process of pitching the series to production companies, intending to create a limited-run TV series. Speaking about his reaction to Davis’s Quora post, Kline said:

You realize, Oh, I’m not actually reading an answer to the question—I’m reading a fictional story about how it would play out if it did happen. The story just pulled me in and the guy’s voice was so interesting that right away I could see it being a film project.

Davis is humble about the answer he wrote, despite its sudden popularity. Davis said: “I was just happy the idea got attention, and anything else from this point on is sort of icing on the cake.”

Davis wouldn’t be the first person to receive studio attention for something he wrote online. A hypothetical discussion about how a group of marines would survive in ancient Rome became a popular ongoing web story, and was eventually optioned to become a feature length film.