After a series of delays attributed largely to the production’s complex nature, HBO’s forthcoming television adaptation of the 1973 film Westworld is almost here. It’s one of the fall TV season’s most promising new shows, and if showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy can deliver, then it might be quite good. Maybe even Game of Thrones-good — an accomplishment HBO wouldn’t mind at all. And if Nolan and Joy’s recently revealed long-term plan for Westworld is any indication, that’s exactly what HBO wants.
Yes, Westworld‘s initial run consists of only 10 episodes, yet it seems plans have been drawn for at least five seasons. And as actor James Marsden explained to Entertainment Weekly, that’s just how the producers “operate”:
“[The delay] wasn’t about getting the first 10 done, it was about mapping out what the next five or six years are going to be… We wanted everything in line so that when the very last episode airs and we have our show finale, five or seven years down the line, we knew how it was going to end the first season — that’s the way Jonah and [executive producer J.J. Abrams] operate. They’re making sure all the ducks are in the row.”
That’s not to say that if HBO picks up Westworld for additional seasons, the show will simply “have a story that repeated itself” every year. As Nolan put it:
“We didn’t want the Fantasy Island version of this [where new guests arrive at the park every season]. We wanted a big story. We wanted the story of the origin of a new species and how that would play out in its complexity”
Until the series premiere Sunday, Oct. 2 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, just imagine how maniacally happy Law & Order creator Dick Wolf is right now. The Westworld: Fantasy Island and Fantasy Island: Westworld spin-offs have potential.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
