This week’s episode of “Limitless” is guaranteed to make viewers want to skip school.
The hit CBS show is doing an episode inspired by the classic John Hughes movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Showrunner Craig Sweeny said that the movie had a tremendous influence on him as a child.
“I would suspect I’ve seen that movie in theaters more than any other film,” Sweeny told TheWrap. “And it came out at the exact right moment to imprint itself in my brain. I know that movie and ‘Sixteen Candles’ more so than is healthy for anyone to know about movies.”
Sweeny also said he was inspired to do a “Ferris” episode when he realized the parallels that existed between the show and the movie.
“I hadn’t thought about the movie in a long time and I realized we were using a lot of techniques they use in the movie,” he said. “Listing things on screen, arrows pointing things out. It hit me all of a sudden like, ‘Wow, this series is influenced in a lot of ways by that movie.’”
In the episode, Brian (Jake McDorman) fakes sick so he can take a day off from the FBI, only to get kidnapped by the CIA to participate in a black ops mission to catch a suspected terrorist hiding in the Pennsylvania wilderness. Striking the right balance between referencing the film without going overboard was essential.
“Figuring out how much was too much was the biggest challenge of the episode,” Sweeny said. “We went through early versions of the script where the CIA operative who comes to talk to Rebecca, Naz, and Boyle where his name was Ed Rooney. And the movie was out there in that universe and he knew people were going to laugh at him.”
The episode also features a guest appearance by former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei “The Pit Bull” Arlovski. Sweeny, an admitted UFC fan, said the Belarussian fighter came to mind immediately for the role. “I thought, ‘They’re going to be out in the woods and they’ve got to be chasing something really scary.’ The first thing I thought of was Andrei Arlovski,” he revealed.
“Limitless: Brian Finch’s Black Op” airs on CBS on Nov. 3 at 10 p.m./9c.