Jeff Probst Reveals Major ‘Survivor 51’ Twist — and It Could Change the Game for Years (Exclusive)

Logo text Jeff Probst promised that Survivor’s Open Era would mean anything can happen, and he wasn’t kidding. Ahead of the Survivor 51 premiere on Wednesday, the longtime host and showrunner spoke exclusively with The Hollywood Reporter below about the future of the game, why players can no longer rely on the patterns of the past, how long the show could continue on and whether Survivor still has anything left to prove. And if that wasn’t enough, he also revealed a new recurring twist that could eventually put millions of dollars on the line and change the game forever. *** Before we get to season 51, I have to ask about the transition from 50. After such a massive milestone season, did you feel any pressure heading into 51? Enormous pressure. We felt pressure before we shot 50. We were already feeling like, “What are we going to do after 50, even though we have not even produced 50?” And I think that pressure was really good because it focused us on 50 and the minute 50 was over, everybody was thinking, “Okay, what’s next?” That’s really what led to this idea of the “Open Era” — the pressure of needing something new to really birth us into the next decade. The Open Era doesn’t necessarily mean that every twist or mechanic is coming back. It just means everything is on the table. With that in mind, is there anything from Survivor history you’d still be reluctant to bring back or that it would need a significant tweak if you did? There’s a couple of things. I think Change History (ed: also known as The Hourglass) is an obvious one that I don’t think we’d bring back. That’s all on me. It was an idea I knew didn’t work and I just shoved it into the game because I loved the name and the thought of it. There are some other things that we haven’t done in a while. I’d like to bring Folklore back where I tell a story and then with your cognitive decline happening, you have to remember facts from the story. We used to like to shoot those at night. That requires a bit of production help. We need a lot of fire. It’s a big setup. There are things like that that are absolutely on the table as are things like themed seasons. If in casting we realize we’ve got David vs Goliath II happening. Great, we’ll do it. As are uneven men and women. We have 11 women, 10 men because we had 21 great people and we didn’t go, let’s make it even. Let’s not fall into any conventional traps. Don’t base tribes based on gender. We might do a season where we have a lot more women on one tribe because we think they’re even the way they’re designed. So if you really just keep opening and opening and opening your mind to the idea that when we say anything is possible, we mean anything is possible. Because no one has seen it yet, some fans are a little unsure exactly what the Open Era may be all about, because it seems so open. What’s the biggest misconception you think people might have about it currently before it airs? Not understanding that if you think of Survivor from season one to season 50, there’s an evolution and you could say, “Oh, the first idol came into the play in Guatemala. There’s always idols.” And then they did fire-making in 35. There’s always fire-making. Then they did this other thing and they had beware advantages and they have journeys. So as a new player playing in say season 45, you could come in going, “Beware advantages are probably in the game. Journeys are probably in the game. It’s going to be three tribes of six. It’s going to be a final three.” And you would generally speaking, be kind of right. You cannot think that now. You have no idea. And just because in 51 we have 21 players and two tribes of 10, doesn’t mean in 52 we’re going to do that. It might mean in 52 we do the exact same thing. Just because you have an idol on your beach doesn’t mean they have the same idol on their beach. So a guy like Russell Hantz who figured out the formula and ended up changing the game by understanding how idols worked, you can’t have a person like that again. Well, I think Russell would probably have an even bigger advantage because Russell’s way of thinking had no boundaries. It favors that player now because Russell’s the guy who could have pulled off what I was talking about earlier where he creates a lie that is so good and possible and compelling and, “It’s me, Russell Hantz,” then all of a sudden you’re believing it. I do think that what you’re going to see coming will be innovative thinkers realizing nobody’s exploiting this format. We’re early, so I’m not sure that’ll happen in 51, but just meaning the opportunity is there for the clever player who understands no boundaries, can embrace permanent uncertainty and will play to win knowing they may lose, sky is the limit. How, if at all, did season 51 change your thinking about what makes a great Survivor player? I think 51 confirmed for me something that I’m still trying to do in my own life, and that is a very simple idea. You cannot play to not lose in life. You just can’t. You’re doomed. You have to play to win. It may fail. Your business idea, it may lose all your money, but you can’t create a business hoping to not lose money. It just doesn’t work. You can’t come into this interview and say, “I think I’ll ask most of these questions. I don’t know. Maybe I won’t ask some.” No, ask every question. You wrote them down. Ask them. Maybe some will suck. They might. They might not, but you got an interview. Let’s maximize it. That’s how I’m trying to see my own life, and I can’t say it strongly enough to a future player. Imagine if you could, that you’re going to lose. What does that free you up to do? Play freely. And you see it in sports all the time. Who often pulls out the upset? The underdog. They got nothing to lose. It’s the Hail Mary. So I think that’s where we’re heading is players realizing Survivor’s a game about losing, which frees me up to win. You’ve filmed 52 seasons. How high can that number go? How high do you think it can go? When I was writing the question, honestly, the number 100 popped into my head. Wow. I mean, that would make me ancient. So maybe I’m not there for 100, although I don’t know. If I had a guy behind me, say I’m in a bit of a walker or wheelchair, but I got a great AC. I got an assistant chair guy and he’s just wheeling me through. I mean, maybe. Got a job for Rizo there. Oh, Rizo is my chair guy? “Faster! Rizo, the wheelchair, faster!” I don’t see an end in sight right now. I think the format is one of the greatest formats in TV. I think we’re a good team producing it. I think we’re really good storytellers. I’m really proud of our storytelling. I think it’s one of the hallmarks of Survivor is we’re not like any other show. And it’s deep, rich storytelling where you take conflict and you create suspense and you have tension. And then you resolve it and then you do it again. So I think it could go for a while. I really do. And I stand by it. I think 51, people are going to go, “It’s pretty damn good.” At this point, does Survivor have anything left to prove? I love that question. The cocky answer: no. I think we’ve proven what we can do as a show. The format proves how good it is, but the humble answer is yes. Every day we can be better. Every day I can be better. I say and do things every season that I go, “Damn, wish I had that moment back. I missed something.” So I think both are true. You have to have the confidence to believe you’re doing a good job, but you also have to have the humility to realize you can always be better. And I think you see it on Survivor, that idea of hubris is deadly. If you think you’re untouchable, you’re dead. We don’t think we’re without growth, but I don’t think we have something to prove.I got to tell you something though, because you brought something up for me. What’s that? One of the things of the Open Era is you can take any idea you’ve ever done and put it back into the show. You can also take an idea you’ve done, put it back into the show with a twist. So we took an idea from 50, this idea of a million dollar coin flip. We said, “What if we put that in the show every season? And every season, one player gets to flip a coin, and if you call it correctly, we’ll add a million dollars to the pot for that season.” Then we put a twist on it. Same rules as 50 with one difference. If you call it incorrectly, you as a coin flipper are out, that million dollars rolls into the next season of Survivor. So in Survivor 51, at some point, a player’s going to flip a coin for a million dollars. If they land it, the prize pool will be $2 million for 51. If they don’t land it, that million dollars will go into Survivor 52 and somebody will flip a $2 million coin making the prize money $3 million. And if that doesn’t land, it’ll go into 53. It will go until it pays off and then it’ll start again. I think it’s the most innovative twist in prize money in the history of unscripted television, because that million dollars is a living, breathing thing. And the question is, where is it going to land and how many of them will there be when it does land? This is an idea you have. It’s not actually in 51. It’s in 51. Oh, it’s in 51. You’re kidding me. No. And it blew their minds in the best way. It just blew my mind. I thought you were thinking of an idea you had. It’s in 51? It’s in 51. That’s what the Open Era offers you, is take all things, old, new, combine them, whatever you want to do. But that twist is really fun. And imagine where it could go. It could pay off every season and suddenly it’s $2 million every season. It could not pay off for three or four seasons and suddenly somebody’s flipping a coin for three or $4 million. All right. There’s a THR exclusive right there. There you go. Pleasure, brother. *** Survivor 51 premieres Wednesday with a two-hour episode airing from 8-10 p.m.