If you were expecting positive news from the series that Sam Esmail, creator of Mr. Robot, had in hand, this note is not for you. Metropolis was going to adapt Fritz Lang’s classic sci-fi film, what will happen?
Can you imagine working for around seven years on a great series and, before starting filming and closing pre-production issues, they cancel it? Well that happened to Sam Esmail, creator of Mr Robot, and all the team metropolisa miniseries that was going to adapt the science fiction film of fritz lang from 1927. Will we ever be able to see it? We tell you below.
As we told them, Esmail I had been working on metropolis several years. What’s more, they were not far from starting filming in the Australian state of Victoria, where it was projected that it would create about 4,000 jobs, making use of one of the infrastructures of “virtual production” largest in the world, as they had announced in 2022. However, we will never be able to see it, since this miniseries became one of the many victims of the growing uncertainty in Hollywood due to the lack of agreement between the Writers Union of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Film and Television Producers (AMPTP).
As reported Deadlinethe producer in charge of Metropolis, Universal Content Productions (UCP), confirmed that the big-budget miniseries had been canceled by “high costs and uncertainty related to the ongoing strike”. The project had already been in limbo for the past seven weeks, as production on draft scripts and special effects had not been completed before the start of the strike on May 2. This obviously delayed budgeting and other key elements of pre-production.
Since the strike did not have (and does not have) a deadline, PCU he had to deal with mounting costs related to starting production, building and maintaining expansive sets, and working on visual effects without knowing when filming might begin. But, after evaluating the money spent so far and the risk of moving forward, the studio decided not to continue with the eight-episode series and notified its partners in AppleTV+who were going to issue it.
Although several things remained to be defined, metropolis already had the participation of briana middleton as protagonist and Lindy Booth in a major but unconfirmed role. Esmail was going to serve as showrunner, scriptwriter (with Thea Von Harbour) and director and was to executive produce through his deal with PCUnext to Chad Hamilton, through Anonymous Content.
For those who do not know what the 1925 novel and the original 1927 film that adapted it are about, we already told you. Directed by lang and written by Thea Von Harbou, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, where society was divided into two large classes: the rich (who have the power and the means of production and live surrounded by luxury in the city) and the workers (condemned to live secluded in the underground , where the industrial heart of the city is located).
In history we see how Frederthe son of John Fredersenwho controls the city, discovers the hard life of the workers and falls in love with Maria, a young woman of humble origin, who is revered by the workers. Both try to overcome the great chasm that separates the classes in their city and try to find a way to bring down the entire system.
Too bad I didn’t get to see the work that could have been done Sam Esmail with this story of metropolis. We’ll see if in the future someone tries to adapt it again… and succeeds.