New J.J. Abrams Show Not Moving Forward at HBO

Demimonde, a planned live-action series created by J.J. Abrams, has officially been passed on by HBO. The news was broken by The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday night, with sources telling the outlet that Abrams made “a last-ditch plea” to HBO and HBO Max exec Casey Bloys to pick up the drama, before Bloys ultimately decided to part ways with the series, which had previously been given a series order back in 2018. Recent reports had indicated that Demimonde‘s proposed budget would be a concern, with the show hypothetically costing over $200 million, more than HBO has spent on the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.

Demimonde would star Danielle Deadwyler (Station Eleven, Watchmen) and would tell the story of the extraordinary lengths a family will go to in order to find their missing child. The series already changed showrunners once in 2020, and would be run The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Kira Snyder and Life‘s Rand Ravich and Far Shariat.

The series would mark Abrams’ first original television idea since 2008’s Fringe, and he would direct the pilot episode. According to reports, Demimonde will now be shopped around to other platforms, with Apple being seen as a logical home for the series after Abrams worked with the streamer on Little Voice and Lisey’s Story. Netflix, where Abrams is currently working on a scripted series about the band U2, is also being named as an option. Warner Bros. Television will still produce the series.

This news comes amid the ongoing wave of changes at the new Warner Bros. Discovery, with new CEO David Zaslav reportedly looking to trim $3 billion from the company’s budget. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company signed a $250 million overall deal with Warner Bros. back in 2019, but has yet to release a new project from it yet, with Zaslav reportedly being unhappy with that lack of output. This is the second Bad Robot project to be passed on by HBO and HBO Max, after the The Shining spinoff Overlook was scrapped.

Other projects Abrams has been working on with Warner Bros. Discovery include the animated DC series Batman: Caped Crusader, as well as original series Subject to Change, Fledgeling, and Duster. Abrams has also been spearheading a franchise for DC’s Justice League Dark, which would hypothetically include a Zatanna film and series for John Constantine and Madame Xanadu. Abrams and the studio remain involved with HBO’s Westworld, which will debut its fourth season later this summer. On the film side, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. are tied to adaptations of Portal, Hot Wheels, Your Name, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, and a new Superman film being written by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

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