Never let it be said that J.J. Abrams doesn’t throw himself into new endeavors with an almost overwhelming sense of gusto. (Whether he maintains that stamina, or just sort of drifts away from project to project the second he gets bored with them is, of course, an entirely different query.) Now—in the wake of an exclusivity deal Abrams signed with Warner Bros. last fall, reportedly for something on the order of $250 million—the Rise Of Skywalker director has announced three new TV projects through his Bad Robot production label, all aimed straight at Warner’s new streaming effort, HBO Max.
The least immediately interesting of these is ’70s crime thriller Duster, which Abrams is co-writing with The Walking Dead’s LaToya Morgan—least interesting in the sense that it involves neither the works of one of the planet’s most rabidly read authors, or a media franchise containing many of its most beloved caped weirdos. Which is to say, the other two shows coming out of Bad Robot right now are a) Overlook, set in the world of Stephen King’s The Shining, and b) an as-yet untitled project set in the ever-gestating Justice League Dark universe.
Of the two shows, we know a lot more about Overlook, which certainly sounds—given the involvement of Bad Robot, King, and WBTV—like a spiritual successor to Hulu’s sometimes fascinating, mostly frustrating anthology show Castle Rock. The new series will center, obviously, on King’s infamous TripAdvisor disaster site, exploring “the untold, terrifying stories of the most famous haunted hotel in American fiction.” That sure sounds like an anthology series, too, because you know what they say: All work and no inter-season continuity makes J.J. a happy boy.
Justice League Dark, meanwhile, is one of those titles Warner Bros. and DC have been smacking their big ol’ heads against for the better part of the decade at this point, dating back to the days when Guillermo Del Toro was still cranking out scripts, focused on DC’s more magical roster of heroes. Doug Liman was attached to direct a feature film version that eventually fell apart a few years back, and now it looks like Abrams and his team are stepping up to bring the team to TV. (Although the presence of normal JLD mainstay John Constantine over on The CW might mean some of the team’s less prominent characters get more attention—bring on Detective Chimp!)
As is usual for Abrams, it’s a big, ambitious slate of stuff to drop on people’s heads, one backed up by the success Bad Robot has had with Westworld on HBO proper. There’s a lot of buzziness to all these projects—big, grabby ideas that probably made them an easy sale in the room. Whether they can maintain that heady momentum once the realities set it—well, that’s an entirely different question, too.
52 Comments
… hurls…
“No TV and no beer make Homer go something something…”
“Go make a Shining prequel series?”
“Don’t mind if I do!!!”*bangs up a pilot script for an Overlook hotel origin series*
Knowing JJ Abrams, we’ll spend 3 and a half seasons wondering what “something something” is, before finding out it’s “yadda yadda yadda,” then the show will end before we find out what “yadda yadda yadda” is.
I don’t want a Justice League Dark show from the man who brought us “Palpatine Fucks”.
https://news.avclub.com/breaking-news-the-emperor-did-not-have-sex-1842107102
Should have put that in the movie than. Otherwise that’s just paratext from the novelization. It’s a glorified deleted scene. If he didn’t want people to think of Papatine having sex, he should have made this information present in the movie. So I will still say Palpatine Fucks.
Palpatine himself said in RotS that the force can be used to create life.
And? The film clearly states that Rey is his biological granddaughter and Sheev refers to her as such. The movie never suggests that Rey was conceived the same way Anakin was. Rey had two biological parents, Anakin didn’t. With all the information that is present in the movie, the only logical explanation for Rey’s relation to Sheev required him to have sex with somebody. I know you pride in your contrarianism but but your just argument relies entirely on conjecture and paratextual information not provided in the film. Just accept that Sheev Palpatine fucks.
Your use of the word “contrarianism” reminds me of the people who said in an article here a few days ago that people who praised TLJ were contrarians.
I honestly don’t care if you like the movie or not. Getting mad over someone liking a movie I didn’t is frankly childish and pointless. You are right that liking the movie isn’t contrarianism and for that I apologize. And honestly, if you like the movie, I’m glad for you. You’re not a bad person if you liked Rise of Skywalker. I apologize for my vitriol towards you. However, regardless of JJ’s intentions, Rise of Skywalker accidentally implied that Palpatine fucks. And you’re right, he may have not intended to do so. But he left information that would have provided that much-needed context on the cutting room floor.He did it before in Into Darkness when when he never bothered to explain why Khan, a man from South Asia, looked a pasty, white Englishman in the movie. It was explained in a comic tie-in nobody read but, like the RoS novelization, that’s pure paratext.
So you’re fine with Khan being played by a Mexican?
Since Laserface appears to have resumed his habit of dismissing my responses to his posts, I’d like to point out in regards to his complaint about a white guy playing Khan in Into Darkness that the original actor who played Khan was Mexican.
First, was the 60’s. Second, maybe if you actually stayed on topic rather than avoiding the issue I wouldn’t dismiss you. It had nothing to do with with how Abrams leaves plot points crucial to the story on the cutting floor and adding it in in supplemental material and why said material isn’t relevant to the story if it’s not in the movie. Next time stay on topic.
Seems to me like the question of whether or not Palpatine fucks was at best tangentially related to the article, so maybe you should ask yourself whether you’re following your own advice about staying on topic.
See you’re doing it again.
When you said “I apologize for my vitriol towards you” I decided to let the Star Wars topic rest, but then you edited your post to complain about the casting of Khan, and I took issue with that. I wasn’t avoiding the topic; I was letting the original topic rest and addressing a new one you introduced. As for the fact that TOS was made in the ‘60s, I’d like to say that in a post-9/11 world casting an Asian to play a villain might’ve been considered problematic by some.
Alright, I see where you’re coming from. That was my bad. I’m sorry, I was in the wrong here.As for the Khan stuff, yeah that’s pretty much why they casted Cumberbatch as Khan. But they could have solved the problem altogether by making him literally anyone else but Khan. Hell the fact that he’s Khan doesn’t add anything to the story because none of the Kelvin-Trek crew have met Khan. It’s only a reveal to the audience.
“leaves plot points crucial to the story on the cutting floor and adding it in in supplemental material”Sounds like an attempt to faithfully emulate Lucas, then.
“I know you pride in your contrarianism”This reminds me, I need to buy a new kettle.
That film would’ve been so much better with just a few small tweaks. “Rey was a failed clone of Palpatine” would have been one such tweak.
Don’t be a prude. Even old, shriveled up, burnt to a crisp men should be able to get some now and again.
I mean, I don’t want to defend the whole “My grandfather used to work for your grandfather.” mess, but I mean, it kinda makes sense that Palpatine would have a child, though the kid’d probably be at least twenty years older than the guy in the flashback. Hear me out: Sheev Palpatine was in normal politician drag for who knows how long on Naboo, it would make sense for him to have a family. It’s still an ass pull, but a senator having a wastrel son isn’t that far fetched (of course there was no previous indication that he had a family).
Honestly I thought for years now he was using his lightsaber on that bald goth chick in the prequels
A zombie corpse clone wizard who somehow still fucks sounds like exactly the kind of antagonist the Justice League Dark would handle.
“Palpatine fucks, and with the power of midi-chlorians behind him, he can go all night!”
If Trump can fuck Stormy I suppose Palpatine can fuck too, since they’re essentially the same person.
Well, that’s not what happened.
The dead speak!
Narrator: You won’t want to OVERLOOK…this hotel. (is sued)
Dang it, now I can’t get the idea of John Constantine entering the Overlook Hotel out of my head.
Annet Mahendru for Zatanna!
Well, on the bright side at least we’re almost out of sci-fi properties he can ruin.
So this guy has to have footage of every studio, network and streaming platform exec. fucking ten year old boys, right?
Either that or JJ Abrams has had a hand in countless successful television shows that have collectively made hundreds of millions dollars.It can only be blackmail or previous success that got him this big deal with HBO max.
It can be two things.
after all the garbage he’s pushed for the past fifteen yearsi don’t want ANYTHING from him i don’t want Bad Star Treki don’t want At Least It Could’ve Made Sense Star Wars i don’t care about The Mystery i want a WRITER to WRITE A STORY where SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENS and PEOPLE TALK instead of all this FAN BOY SERVICE and MYSTERY
So he runs Star Trek into the ground, and then does the same to Star Wars. And now he’s going to do the same to DC. If JJ Abrams gets a Marvel project, he’ll hit the quadfecta of ruining franchises!
*Gestures at convoluted train wreck that is the DCEU and DC Comics’ third reboot in the past decade.*
At this point I’m not sure he can run it into the ground, just maybe pour fuel onto the fire.
The overlook hotel show could be promising. Bates Motel in particular showed you can do a creative take on an iconic movie and still make it unique.
It could focus on furry fandom which obviously was a key demographic in the hotel’s prime (going by the guy in the bear(?) suit in the movie).
“Did you want to know all about the deep dark history of the Overlook Hotel? You didn’t? The thought had and would never occur to you? Well, too bad!”
So, a studio is going to shell out ludicrous sums of money for a half-baked idea that Abrams will tee up and hand off to someone else to ruin while he wanders off to murder some other beloved franchise?
It’s impressive how he keeps picking up franchises with a poor/mixed track record, and still makes people angry.
Your autocorrect changed “fucking” to “picking.”
Is this the Shining world without the ‘sexy vampires’ of the recent movie whose name I’ve forgotten or is this the Shining world with the ‘sexy vampires’ of the recent movie whose name I’ve forgotten?
So he’s sticking to what he does best: nothing truly original.
Justice League Dark is going NOWHEREthe straights don’t even want Justice League of America or even Justice SocietyWatchmen ended all that the straights got the comic tropes quickly they’re PAST Watchmen, they’re into The Boys which means DECONSTRUCTED super heroes are the next wave so they NEED to do JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL with guy gardner getting punched by batman they NEED to so Swamp Thing the way Alan Moore wrote it: as PURE COSMIC HORROR they NEED to let Wonder Woman stop being made of CLAY and fuck SUPERMAN the straights understand the concepts and now they’re ready for The Invisibles, for Grant Morrison’s JLA they be ready for James Robinsons STARMAN, witrh all it’s flashback, noir glory THEY READY for some MEAT
Somebody, please, anybody, stop this man’s reign of terror.
Stop, stop, our culture is already dead!