The big screen to small screen adaptation craze is cooking up its most interesting concoction to date; a series based on the 1973 Michael Crichton movie, Westworld. Headed up by Jonathan Nolan and J.J. Abrams, the show has been percolating since last year and this summer, the futuristic tale bagged a massive cast. Word has been remarkably quiet since August, and that might possibly be because the pilot went into production. Or Nolan and Abrams did a little “teaser” filming. Either way, whatever they did worked because HBO has now issued Westworld with a full series order.
In a Vine posted via HBO’s official Twitter, the network confirmed the news and further revealed a 2015 broadcast date:
You are correct. @CaptainAutism @JillPantozzi @vqnerdballs #Westworld https://t.co/MsoAfh4OXA
— HBO (@HBO) November 17, 2014
For fans of the movie, there’s a series of changes in store for the transition to the small screen. In the original tale of an amusement park populated by robots designed to satisfy every human whimsy, the focus was on the humans. This time around, the “first person” perspective will be held by the robots as audiences will empathize with their struggles. They’re pretty much all hooker-bots, so it’s not hard to feel pangs of pity for the poor ‘droids. The premise of the show has been vaguely summed up by HBO’s official logline:
WESTWORLD is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.
Bringing that dark odyssey to viewers will be Nolan, who’s said to be in the director’s seat for the pilot which is based on a script he co-wrote with Lisa Joy. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions will be overseeing the entire series.
It’s easy to snub yet another adaptation. For Westworld, however, the creative team behind it aren’t your run of the mill industry types. They’ve both got passion, heart and a vision for breaking out of the box. And that’s before we’ve even mentioned the starry cast, which includes Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Miranda Otto, Rodrigo Santoro, Shannon Woodward, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Angela Sarafyan and Simon Quarterman. Be dismissive of a remake if you like, but Westworld looks like it’s setting its sights much higher than mere mimicry.
We’ll keep you posted when any more news lands on HBO’s upcoming sci-fi series.