Wonder how this would affect Jonah's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation. HBO owns the rights, and is also co-producing with Warner Bros. Television. Given this difficult journey with Westworld, & as demonstrated with Utopia, they could easily choose to pull Nolan off this, and develop it with someone else.

But in all likelihood, owing to the ambitious nature of the project, it probably won't be out for another 3-4 years. And if Westworld ends up being the next Thrones for the network, that's a point in Jonah's favor for shepherding this.

Also, with regards to the 2 new writers, if HBO's looking at guys who've worked with them before, reckon some of the folks from The Leftovers could fit the bill. Specifically, Jacqueline Hoyt (both seasons) & Patrick Somerville (S2). Kath Lingenfelter, who's already part of the staff, worked with the former in S1 of that show. The latter, in addition to writing for TV, is also an novelist (much like fellow guys on staff: Ed Brubaker, Charles Yu, & Dominic Mitchell {who's a playwright}).

And if they're looking at folks who've developed stuff for them (on the high-concept front), but it didn't go anywhere, there's Karl Gajdusek (The Spark: though it may not be him, as he's an EP on Netflix's supernatural sci-fi drama, Stranger Things, and is also developing an adaptation of Gary Shteyngart's dystopian novel, Super Sad True Love Story, for Showtime); Colet Abedi, David Schulner (probably not him, as he's working on Emerald City, NBC's adaptation of The Wizard of Oz), & Giannina Facio (Ridley Scott's Pharaoh); Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman (Darren Aronofsky's Hobgoblin; they're also novelists, and are married like Lisa/Jonah); & Bruce Miller (The Devil You Know, which is also unofficially reported to have been shelved).

And it's also unclear, if the S6 finale of Game of Thrones would lead this in, or the last few episodes would. Given they mentioned June, it could be anywhere between the 5th, and the 26th (Episodes 7-10; kinda fitting as those are the ones Westworld needed to re-jig). Think I'd go with June 19, as GoT usually have their WHAM! moment almost every season at the ninth episode. Most eye-balls would be there, which makes it easier for this show to find an audience.

March 21 is the official start up date for production per Jeffrey Wright's twitter. Based on that I'd guess July 31 is the premiere date.

Boxer35 wrote:March 21 is the official start up date for production per Jeffrey Wright's twitter. Based on that I'd guess July 31 is the premiere date.

Not necessarily. For the previous season of The Leftovers, they were just gonna start shooting the finale, the same week the first episode aired, if I'm right. Given the 2-2.5 weeks it takes to finish one for Westworld, they'd be done by the end of May. Post-production happens in parallel. Even they're starting up in mid/late June (with the lead-in from Thrones), the finale'd air by the end of August (21/28). 3 months is more than enough to sound & picture lock the final cut of this one.

And there's the fact that for the past 4 years, a drama has premiered their season the very next week after GoT's finale (True Blood from 2011-14, True Detective last year).

Thandie Newton just put this out. With her is costume designer Ane Crabtree. They've resumed the wardrobe fittings, though production'll be a little longer to restart.



Also, cinematographer Brendan Galvin's profile has him listed only for Episodes 2, 4, 6, & 8. If he is alternating with Robert McLachlan (who's credited with 3, 5, & 7; but think had to leave cause he's committed to Ray Donovan's fourth season, which premieres in the summer), and is not doing the 10th, it probably implies the finale & the 9th are shot together, by director Richard J. Lewis (& a presumably new DP; who's also probably handling the partial reshoots of the 7th).

If Paul Cameron, the guy who shot the pilot, returned to do these, terrific. He was walking on the newest Pirates of the Caribbean last year, but that finished production in the summer (around July).

One more thing: The wait'll be really worth it, if the pilot's between 90 minutes & 2 hours. Like Vinyl.

Went over the timeline again. The pilot was picked up in November 2014, but they only started production on the series in July. And going by what Jonah mentioned in THR, it's fair to assume they wrote the entire season (or at the very least, outlined each episode) before starting to roll cameras (and scripts would be written, in parallel). Which is why it took them so long to start. But as mentioned in the article, the cuts for the earlier episodes were way too strong, and the outlines for whatever had to follow them didn't necessarily hold up, which is why they had to stop & re-break them. Which makes sense, and is fair.

And if I'm right, one of the 2 additional writers that HBO may've hired is Kath Lingenfelter. Didn't come across her name in the initial pass of looking into the writing team. I can see why the network recommended her (kickass work on S1 of The Leftovers). Second one's still not known, though. Probably will by April.

HBO put out the first full-length trailer for Vinyl, on October 5 of last year (with a release date set for January, before pushing it by a month). If the same timeframe were to hold good for this show, & if the launch in summer is true (end of June), we should get it here, by the end of the month, or early April.

Not too long, then. They start up production again in 2 weeks, & they probably have atleast 5-6 episodes that're locked, to feature footage from (though it's commonplace for trailers to just have material from the pilot).

Another writer has been identified. Person of Interest's Dan Dietz. And he's a playwright, too (like 1x05's Dominic Mitchell).

He could be the one of the two additional scribes who joined the show (as mentioned in THR). This could mean the eighth episode is scripted by him & Kath Lingenfelter (who's probably the other). Much like how the 1x08 of The Leftovers was the only one of the season to not be written by the showrunner. Or it's probably Lisa Joy & Kath for the eighth, while Dan & whoever's else is possibly a new hire, would take on the ninth. This could leave Lisa & Jonah to do the finale.

If Dietz & Lingenfelter are the 2 newbies, it's cool that both of 'em worked with the showrunners in the past (the former with Nolan on PoI, & the latter with Joy on Pushing Daisies).

Heeeeeere's the thing. If the show is received well, I think most of this dramarama will blow over. Jonah is clearly very talented and if it turns out he was pushing things in the right direction then I think we'll be all set for more excellent work from him.

josephcq wrote:Heeeeeere's the thing. If the show is received well, I think most of this dramarama will blow over. Jonah is clearly very talented and if it turns out he was pushing things in the right direction then I think we'll be all set for more excellent work from him.

Indeed. Certainly would bode well for the livelihood of his adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation.

Also, the success of this show would also lead to the network to embrace genre productions, a lot more. Going by their slate, they're already prepping/formerly did a few: 2 alien dramas (The Spark, & Pharaoh), a superhero saga with Adi Shankar called Gods & Secrets (the only one that's been ordered to pilot, casting's more or less done, & will likely shoot this year), one based on a dystopian series of novels called MaddAddam with Darren Aronofsky, another rumored sci-fi show from George R.R. Martin called Captain Cosmos (period piece, centered on a writer of a genre show in the likes of The Twilight Zone), the potential adaptation of the fantasy series The Beasts of Valhalla (with Peter Dinklage), & a version of Alan Moore's Watchmen (with Zack Snyder attached as Executive Producer). Though not fantastical, there's also this show based on a memoir of a Nicholas Johnson, during his time working on the U.S. Antarctic program, called Big Dead Place, which is in development (Tim Van Patten's attached to direct the pilot, though they only have a script commitment so far). And between 2007 & 2009, there was a dystopian series that was being worked on called Welcome to Americatown, a near future drama centered in a medical institute called Patient 2344, & two dramas from The X-Files/The Man in the High Castle's Frank Spotnitz: Humanitas, & The World Inside. The former's on futuristic medical developments, & the latter's is a post-apocalyptic one centered on overpopulation. Neither went through, I believe. There was even a dystopian miniseries called Year Zero (set in 2022), that was developed in 2011 with BBC Worldwide, which went nowhere. As well one based on the Pulitzer winning novel A Visit From The Goon Squad, which tells a story with a punk rock backdrop, that jumps back & forth between the 1980s & the 2020s, that fizzled out after some time in development. They were also going to do an adaptation of David Foster Wallace's dystopian epic Infinite Jest as a feature, but that went by the wayside, too. General consensus is that because of the book's length, it'd be better suited as a miniseries/regular show.

And there's a bunch of period shows, like Hobgoblin (from Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, & Darren Aronofsky), Cortes (with Martin Scorsese & Benicio Del Toro), & a Belgian drama called Buda Bridge, that're either dead or delayed. And Jenji Kohan's 'New World' drama, The Devil You Know, is not going anywhere further, too. I'm afraid neither is Elton John & Alan Ball's 18th century European music school project, Virtuoso.

The network needs more runaway mainstream hits for the future, as Game of Thrones will probably conclude in about 2-4 years. And from a critical standpoint, The Leftovers will be gone by the end of this year, & their previous summer hit, True Blood, is gone, too. Westworld could fill all of these voids, and it might also end up paving the way for more high concept productions.

Netflix is really kicking their ass from a genre standpoint (the Marvel shows, & Sense8), are developing a hell of a lot more (Stranger Things, Lost in Space, Black Mirror, Kiss Me First, Altered Carbon, Travelers, & the rumored adaptation of The Legend of Zelda), & even some in other languages (3% in Portuguese; & Dark in German). All of this is in addition to the other stuff that fall under the whole "New Golden Age of TV" schtick.

Even Amazon's gotten into the game, with The Man in the High Castle, the rumored adaptation of Barbarella, one based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels, Strange New Things (based on Michel Faber's novel), & the series version of Galaxy Quest, with the film's co-writer Robert Gordon, & director Dean Parisot. As has Hulu: in addition to 11.22.63, they're working on a series version of the video game Myst, a superhero show called Citizen, & an anthology like Black Mirror & The Twilight Zone, called Dimension 404.

HBO really need to pick up on this front. They already intend to increase production by 50% this year, so that's a step in the right direction. They may even get Utopia moving with another director, as stated in THR, with a generous budget, if the Western sci-fi epic sails smoothly. Or hell, given how they're willing to let Deadwood have a movie to wrap things up, they could do a limited approach to Carnivàle, too, as creator Daniel Knauf didn't want a movie to finish the story. Though the network has revived a cancelled show before (Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback), probably won't happen here, but just tossing it out. Even more unlikely for Rome, too.

Boxer35 wrote:March 21 is the official start up date for production per Jeffrey Wright's twitter. Based on that I'd guess July 31 is the premiere date.

Think I was wrong here. If it was to be July 31 and the pilot is 2 hours that would mean Vice Principals and Ballers would premiere the week after on August 7 (similar to how Vinyl aired solo and was then followed by Girls./Togetherness the week after), but the recently released teaser for Vice Principals clearly stated it would be out in July.

So i'll go with July 10 for Westworld. Thrones ends June 26, and it doesn't make sense to premiere a brand new show on a holiday weekend so the 10th makes sense.

Boxer35 wrote: So i'll go with July 10 for Westworld. Thrones ends June 26, and it doesn't make sense to premiere a brand new show on a holiday weekend so the 10th makes sense.

Joblo.com indicated that HBO might use Game of Thrones, to lead it in. Which puts it around June 26, if it airs after 6x10 (like how the finale of The Sopranos, led in the pilot of John From Cincinnati, back in 2007). Veep & Silicon Valley could probably air a bit earlier in the day, to make room for the pilot. Especially if it's 2 hours long. The comedies might even take a break that week, like how it was between episodes 7 & 8 of GoT S4.

That way, they wrap by August 28. The Night Of runs in September (2 episodes every Sunday), leaving it free for The Leftovers to kickoff on October 2.

All speculation. Could be wrong. We'll probably know for sure within the next month or two, when the trailer would (inevitably) be out.