Development
The original Butterfly graphic novel was created by Arash Amel, written by Marguerite Bennett, and illustrated by Antonio Fuso and Stefano Simeone with colors by Adam Guzowski. The first issue of the comic was published by Boom! Studios in September 2014. As a screenwriter, Amel initially conceived Butterfly as a film or television series.
In 2013, Amel and Stephen Christy, then editor-in-chief of Archaia, explored a television adaptation of the comic, with Amel writing a first pass at a TV pitch document. That year, Amel and Christy approached a French TV studio that was looking for internationally set material that could be of interest to an American audience. The thought was to set Butterfly in France, shooting in Europe with two American leads. The French studio optioned the television rights before the comic book was published. After meetings with several American television networks, nothing came to fruition, primarily due to networks' lack of interest at the time on foreign co-productions. After the comic book was published and the French studio option had expired, producers Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Ben Pugh came on board and, along with Amel and Christy, optioned the project to a UK broadcast network in 2016. A pilot episode and series document were written by Amel, with the series now set in London and with Dark co-creator and director Baran bo Odar attached to direct the pilot. However, after a major restructuring at the UK broadcaster in 2018, the project was let go and the rights reverted.
In 2019, Christy pitched the comic book to Daniel Dae Kim, who was looking for material to produce under a deal his production company 3AD had with Amazon MGM Studios. Kim came on board as a producer and, with the blessing of Boom! Studios and Amel, changed the source material's American and European setting to South Korea with an international cast as he sought to explore Asian American themes through the series. Amazon optioned the project and put it into development, hiring novelist Steph Cha and showrunner Ken Woodruff to adapt the graphic novel. Other executive producers include John Cheng, Christy, Ross Richie, and Amel.
From the first meeting with Amazon Studios in 2019, it took six years before the series would premiere in 2025. The writing process was interrupted by the six-month writers' strike in 2023. Originally, Kim was not going to star in addition to producing, but when he did eventually sign on to star, the focus of the show was changed from being solely on Rebecca to being equally focused on Rebecca and David. The first two episodes were directed by Kitao Sakurai.
On October 10, 2025, Amazon Prime Video canceled Butterfly after one season, despite hitting #1 on Amazon's US top 10 chart, #2 on Amazon's global top 10 chart, and #6 on the Nielsen US TV chart in the week of its debut.
