If HBO viewers are frantically pursuing something to watch now that Game of Thrones has wrapped up for season 6, Westworld will hope to fill that void and then some when Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s sci-fi series makes its bow later in 2016.
Truth be told, it’s been a long and meandering road for the Western series, after production ground to a halt so that HBO could reportedly iron out creative differences that threatened to derail its serialized spin on the 1973 film of the same name.
That said, the Westworld bound for the small-screen is decidedly different than Michael Crichton’s thrilling classic, and leading star Evan Rachel Wood told Collider that viewers have no idea what’s coming.
“I’m also tickled at how little people know. All the expectations and the guesses I’ve heard are not even in the ball park. So, I love that people are going to go in thinking it’s one thing, and being very surprised to find it another, in a good way. All of the action, and the Wild West West fun, crazy, HBO stuff is in there and it’s all amazing, but what separates the show is that it’s an existential drama. It’s an intellectual nightmare. It is all very much based in reality. A lot of the technologies that we’re exploring are stuff that we’re working at, right now.
“All of this is not that far away. It’s taking a look at humanity and the state that we’re in now and what would happen, if we kept on going the way that we’re going and we created this artificial intelligence. The only thing they have to work off of is what we show them, but then, if they advance and surpass us, what would be the biggest threat? We would. You should be scared. I’m scared. But I feel like maybe I’m going to be in with the robots because they’ll see the show and think I’m one of them. Honestly, we’ve had these talks on set about, ‘Maybe they’ll spare us because we’re going to be their heroes.’”
Wood will be joined in the new series by Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, Jeffrey Wright and Clifton Collins Jr. Meanwhile, J.J. Abrams holds a producing role on HBO’s long-gestating drama.
Expect Westworld to make its bow before the year’s end. As for HBO’s Comic-Con plans, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s Western series isn’t a part of the lineup, but there is mention of both Silicon Valley and, of course, Game of Thrones. Check it out on the next page.
