Despite celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, The Truman Show is arguably more prescient than ever before, with writer Andrew Niccol and director Peter Weir proving themselves to be miles ahead of the cultural curve by the day.
In 2023, millions of people around the world are desperate to record, share, and upload every aspect of their existence and let everybody else know the ins and outs of their entire lives, with the obvious difference being that Jim Carrey’s Truman Burbank was completely unaware he’d spent his days as the star of his own TV series.
A critical and commercial darling that holds up just as well today as it did back in 1998, anybody who watches The Truman Show for the first time at the height of the social media age may be left asking why it was ever considered sci-fi at all, but at least we know it isn’t going to be rebooted, remade, or sequelized. Or is it?
Writer Niccol does have an intriguing idea that he shared with ScreenRant, but that doesn’t mean the prospect of a Truman Show continuation is something that needs to exist.
“There has been talk of doing a musical – believe it or not – or a series. When it’s a different art form, I don’t think it takes anything away from the original. In my version of a series, I thought it would be fun, if after Truman walked through the sky, the audience clamored for more (which you sense at the end of the film). I imagine there would be a network with multiple channels all starring a subject born on the show.
If I set it in New York City, there would be girl living on the Upper East Side, a boy from Harlem, a kid from Chinatown, etc. Since they are all on their own channel and move in their own circles, they are never meant to meet. But at the end of the first season, the boy from Harlem and the rich girl find themselves drawn to each other. They both sense that the other is acting differently from anyone they’ve ever met…because for the first time, they’ve met someone who is not acting! (In the second season, the Network would desperately try to kill off their romance.)”
It could definitely work, but sometimes greatness is much better off left well alone, a sentiment that most definitely applies to The Truman Show.