HBO has attached Demimonde, the new big-budget sci-fi drama from director JJ Abrams.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, (opens in a new tab) Demimonde, which was to be Abrams' first solo television creation since his original hit Alias, has now been pulled from production by HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys. .
The reason for HBO's decision was attributed to skyrocketing costs, which had seen the projected budget for Halfworld's first season skyrocket to over €200 million, and since the studio spent less over the duration of the new Game Of Thrones. Thrones. spinoff, House of the Dragon(opens in a new tab), the streaming giant has refused to pay the costs.
Abrams is now too free to take the project elsewhere and is expected to start talks with streaming services to try to resurrect it. When the show sold out in 2018, HBO outbid Apple (opens in new tab) for the rights, so imagine the latter could be Abrams' first stop...
What was Demimonde going to talk about?
Well, there are conflicting reports, but we were in classic sci-fi territory.
The HBO show summary only lists it as "an epic and intimate sci-fi fantasy drama," while Deadline reports (opens in new tab) that the series would be built around "Olive Reed, who is torn from her husband and daughter in a brutal scientific accident, and is forced to unravel a plot to find her family, now lost in a dark and distant otherworld.
It's a small change from the show's original description, given to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 (opens in a new tab), which said it would follow "...a family, consisting of a mother who works as a scientist, her husband, and their young daughter, all of whom are in a horrific car accident. After the mother ends up in a coma, her daughter begins rummaging through her experiments in the basement and ends up being transported to another world in the midst of a battle against a monstrous and oppressive force, her father following her to this new world.
Either way, Danielle Deadwyler, star of Netflix's The Harder They Fall (opens in a new tab) and HBO's dystopian drama Station Eleven (opens in a new tab), was ready to lead the way as Reed, however. no other cast members on board. even.
We may never know, unless Abrams finds a buyer: He's earned over seven billion dollars at the box office, so you imagine he might be worth knowing.
Analysis: Is JJ Abrams' power on the wane?
Whatever happens to Demimonde, Abrams is going to be a very busy man.
He's just set up a new version of Speed Racer with Apple TV Plus (opens in a new tab), where he's also overseeing Presumed Innocent, a new team-up with Big Little Lies' David E. Kelley. Abrams is also booked to deliver a rocker U2 biopic for Netflix and is developing a new DC series (opens in a new tab) Justice League Dark and Duster for HBO Max, as well as a new take on John Constantine.
All of this suggests that TV executives aren't ignoring his phone calls.
Chances are, HBO is looking at his track record and chickening out. The network is spending big on its new adaptation of The Last Of Us, (opens in a new tab) which is expected to cost over €150 million, and it just spent a nice sum to make House of The Dragon.
The network's two hits, Euphoria (opens in a new tab) and Succession (opens in a new tab), are booked for their third and fourth seasons respectively, and the talent of those shows, with their vast cast of people together, you will earn much more. .
Warner Media, HBO's parent company, has now merged with Discovery, and multiple industry reports say new CEO David Zaslav is taking a close look at the company's track record. Not spending more than €200 million on a sci-fi series without a successful book or graphic novel behind it was probably an easy decision in light of that.