Field of Dreams Reboot Creator Explains Why Peacock Scrapped TV Series

“If you build it, he will come,” the ghost of legendary baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) famously tells Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in 1989’s Field of Dreams. Peacock built a baseball field in Iowa for Michael Schur’s television adaptation of the beloved baseball drama — but as the Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-creator found out, if you build it, a series won’t come. When Peacock pulled the plug on the Field of Dreams TV show last summer, it was reported that Universal Television was shopping the series to other streamers. Another year later, Schur has explained why the NBCUniversal streaming service benched Field of Dreams:

“They just changed their mind,” The Good Place creator told Vulture. “They didn’t want to spend the money anymore.” The series was in pre-production, Schur added, and “built a baseball stadium in a cornfield in Iowa that’s still sitting there as we speak.”

Schur’s re-imagining of the movie, based on W. P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe,” received a straight-to-series order at Peacock in 2021. Less than 12 months later, just ahead of its scheduled shooting start, it was announced Field of Dreams wasn’t moving forward at the streamer. Schur was writing and executive producing the series for Fremulon (Parks and Rec, Brooklyn Nine-Nine)with The Gordon Company’s Lawrence Gordon, the Oscar-nominated producer of the original movie, also serving as executive producer alongside 3 Arts’ David Miner (Master of None, Hacks). 

NBCUniversal Television and Peacock announced the series as their second collaboration with Schur, who co-created the since-cancelled Rutherford Falls for the service.

“Field of Dreams is an iconic Universal Film title from venerableproducers Lawrence and Charles Gordon, that we could only have entrustedto Mike Schur,” Erin Underhill, President, Universal Television, said at the time.”His talent, his love for baseball and his reverence for its themes makehim the perfect choice to revisit this beloved film that evokesnostalgia and visceral emotion in so many of its fans.”

It’s not the only series to be passed up at Peacock. Last month, Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin announced that NBCUniversal passed on Wild Cards, the planned live-action adaptation of his sci-fi superhero stories, which was in the works at Hulu before being picked up at Peacock. In other Peacock news, the streamer is developing the John Wick spin-off series The Continental, the live-action adaptation of PlayStation’s Twisted Metal video games starring Anthony Mackie, an upcoming third season of its Fresh Prince reboot Bel-Air, and the Monk sequel movie Mr. Monk’s Last Case.