Dark City Director Teases Original Star Could Return for Planned TV Series

Back in August, Dark City director Alex Proyas confirmed that a TV adaptation of the film is in development, and now he is hinting that Kiefer Sutherland could be asked to reprise his role. Sutherland, who played the creepy Daniel Schreber in the film recently, praised Proyas and the role in a recent interview, and following the publication of that interview, Proyas took to social media to suggest maybe fans will get to see more from the 24 star. Schreber was a pale, stammering mad scientist who worked on behalf of the Strangers (an alien race) who experimented on humanity, trying to get to the bottom of what makes us individuals.

The issue came up as Sutherland was promoting his role on Showtime’s The First Lady. He plays U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the series, and was asked to break down some of his most iconic roles for a video interview (which you can see below).

“Dark City, which was directed by Alex Proyas, was one of my most favorite experiences that I’ve ever had, as a person and as an actor,” Sutherland recently told GQ. “Alex Proyas is a real visionary, he wrote the cartoon version of Dark City when he was 15 years old. I did that movie at a time when maybe I wasn’t the hottest ticket on the street. My career was in a questionable state, at best. I met with him in a hotel and I remember acting out the part for him in the lobby. He just wanted to have a drink with me, but I wasn’t going to let it go, I was walking out of there with that job, because I really, really wanted it.”

Proyas posted a comment to Facebook, teasing, “Kiefer might be back in those shoes again… I hope!”

“All I wanted to do in creating the voice was a stutter of someone who is so scared ‘t-t-t-that couldn’t get everything out because they were scared because they were terribly beaten and terribly abused and yet somehow still have a spark and a wit,” Sutherland told GQ. “Trying to convey that in a hotel bar is maybe not the easiest thing to do, or maybe the brightest call, but I think what he got from it was that I’d do anything. [Laughs] I loved that character. One of the worst hairstyles of all time and I wore that hairstyle for four months with pride for the right to do that part.”  

“Dark City right now is really an intriguing one to me because we’re developing a series, a Dark City series,” Proyas told the Popcorn Frights Festival in August. “We’re in the very early stages [of the project] but I’m having to reanalyze in order to construct a new story. I’m having to go back and kind of jog my memory as to what we actually did and what I think worked and what I think didn’t work and reevaluate my own film, so that’s been a very interesting experience as well which I’ve not done before.”