|
Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail is working on a limited series based on Fritz Lang’s 1927
sci-fi film Metropolis for Universal Cable Productions. The budget for each
episode will be $10 million dollars. The project has just begun development and
will not be seen for 2-3 years which will allow Esmail to do seasons four and
five of Mr. Robot. It isn’t clear just how much work he will actually do but he
will be in control of every aspect of it. The series will take place in a future
society where wealthy industrialists rule the city from high-rise tower
complexes as a lower class of underground-dwelling workers toil constantly to
operate the machines that provide its power. The attempt to bring the society
down will be at the hands of two lovers from opposite sides of the system. There
will be a writers’ room for the project but it will involve only 2-3 writers who
are figuring out how the series will work as opposed to them writing scripts.
Once done the project will be shopped to various cable and streaming outlets.
UCP and Esmail are also developing a TV series based on the new podcast
Homecoming. The six-part experimental-fiction podcast follows a caseworker at a
secret government facility, her ambitious supervisor, and a soldier desperate to
rejoin civilian life. That project is getting the attention of actors who have
never done TV before. |
