HBO has a fair number of series that show up for development there and they’ve passed on some interesting ones before. But they also grab some surprising ones as a development of Westworld into a TV series may seem a bit unusual but ends up falling perfectly into their wheelhouse. The series, based off of the 70’s movie of the same name, has been give an order with a 2015 debut. We’re expecting it to be a summer series based on the layout of their shows for the year so far and with True Blood having finished this year. The show, based on the pilot, is set to star Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright, James Marsden, and Rodrigo Santoro.
Anthony Hopkins will play Dr. Robert Ford, the brilliant, taciturn and complicated creative director, chief programmer and chairman of the board of Westworld who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park — and unorthodox methods of achieving it. Wood plays the provincial, beautiful and kind Dolores Abernathy, the quintessential farm girl of the frontier West — who is about to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie.
The original feature was released in 1973 based on the story by Michael Crichton, who also directed it, which had as its starts Yuk Brynner and James Brolin. With it being a Warner Bros. property at this point after being with MGM originally, that makes it easier for HBO to work with.
The people behind this are certainly interesting and that alone makes it something worth seeing what could develop as J.J. Abrams is set to produce with Bryan Burk of Bad Robot. The pilot that’s been delivered will have Jonathan Nolan co-writing it and directing it. Nolan is currently the showrunner on Person of Interest, where he’s also directed a bit. Nolan will be writing with Pushing Daisies writer Lisa Joy.
Original feature plot concept: For $1,000 a day, vacationers can indulge whims at the theme park called Westworld. They can bust up a bar or bust out of jail, drop in on a brothel or get the drop on a gunslinger. It’s all safe: the park’s lifelike androids are programmed never to harm the customers. But not all droids are getting with the program.
Plot concept: Westworld is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.
