HBO’s highly ambitious Westworld — based on the 1973 sci-fi western-thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton — has taken a lengthy route to the small screen. HBO greenlit the pilot way back in 2013 and ordered it to series in 2014. The network had hoped the show would arrive on HBO by 2015, and had even released its first image and trailer of the series last year.
Unfortunately, the series — exec-produced and written by Jonathan Nolan — wasn’t able to make its original 2015 debut, and while HBO insists that it will still premiere sometime in 2016, production on the series has hit a delay. According to Variety, production on the series was shuttered for two months so executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy can catch up on the final four scripts. Filming was supposed to wrap in November of last year, but it will now pick up again in March.
We still don’t know, however, when the series will premiere, although the earliest spot HBO has on its calendar is this summer, after the sixth season of Game of Thrones and before the final season of The Leftovers, which is tentatively scheduled for the fall.
Production delays are not unusual. Netflix’s Baz Luhrmann series The Get Down was delayed last year, although it will still debut in August of this year. HBO’s Game of Thrones famously also hit a snag, as the original pilot had to be re-shot and partially re-cast.
Westworld will star Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Shannon Woodward, Ed Harris, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, and Jeffrey Wright. Based on an agreement the extras in the series had to sign, the show is expected to contain graphic sexual situations.
(Via Variety)
