‘Westworld’ Canceled After Four Seasons
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It’s sunset for HBO-Bad Robot’s Westworld, the premium cabler announced this afternoon. The show ended its fourth season on August 14.
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The series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, an adaptation of the 1973 Michael Crichton film, boasted nine Primetime Emmy wins during its run and 54 noms, as well as a big-name cast that included Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Thandie Newton, Tessa Thompson, Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Hemsworth, Aaron Paul and many others. Newton won the series’ sole acting Emmy, Supporting Actress in Drama Series in 2020 for her portrayal of Maeve, who began the show as a western town android prostitute (called “Hosts” on the show) and eventually evolved into a badass warrior protecting her robotic kin.
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Nolan said at New York Comic Con last month that he had hoped for a fifth and final season but still was in talks with the network. Joy had mentioned the same sentiment when the fourth season ended in August.
Said HBO in a statement: “Over the past four seasons, Lisa and Jonah have taken viewers on a mind-bending odyssey, raising the bar at every step. We are tremendously grateful to them, along with their immensely talented cast, producers and crew, and all of our partners at Kilter Films, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television. It’s been a thrill to join them on this journey.”
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Kilter Films added, “Making Westworld has been one of the highlights of our careers. We are deeply grateful to our extraordinary cast and crew for creating these indelible characters and brilliant worlds. We’ve been privileged to tell these stories about the future of consciousness – both human and beyond – in the brief window of time before our AI overlords forbid us from doing so.”
Westworld kicked off in season one (much like the film) as a theme park in which the rich played in, killing android robots and having sex with them. Ultimately, the Hosts got wise, became more human-like, laid siege to the park and escaped into the real futuristic world where they blended in and created more havoc. Season 4 ended with Thompson’s Host jefe, Charlotte Hale, sealing up the Valley of the Beyond –a heaven or cloud where the souls of the androids went– and crushed her own “pearl” or soul. It appeared that season 5 would be a reboot, returning us to the original western park. Part of the series’ intrigue lay in figuring out if Harris’ lead character, the Man in Black, who was also an owner of the park, was real or human. Hosts would continually be destroyed and revived later on. Season one was beloved by critics and fans as Nolan and Joy ran two-different timelines in the western park with a slight of hand, one featuring the older version of the Man in Black, played by Harris, and the other with the younger version, played by Jimmi Simpson. Keen viewers had already figured that out halfway through, but to others, it was a complete surprise. While the Crichton film boasted other theme parks (i.e. Roman World), so did the series with a season 2 that took place in Samurai world and Jungle world.
The cancellation leaves Bad Robot without a series on the air at HBO after WarnerMedia made a half billion deal with J.J. Abrams back in September 2019, a pact that runs through 2024. Bad Robot’s sci-fi drama series Demimonde was unplugged over budget issues in June, the pricetag reaching $200M; this in the wake of the Warner Bros Discovery merger coming together. Other Bad Robot series, Constantine and Madame X, were also passed on by HBO Max.
It’s no secret that the ratings for Westworld had petered out throughout its run. LA Film estimated that the third season alone cost around $100M.
Yesterday, during a Warner Bros Discovery Q3 earnings call, CEO David Zaslav exclaimed “The grand experiment of creating something at any cost is over” and emphasized how he wasn’t going to pay millions for a show that delivers a low rating. That said, an HBO insider tells us that Westworld wasn’t axed over cost-cutting measures.
In the meantime, Nolan and Joy have a series adaptation of the William Gibson futuristic novel, The Peripheral, in its first season on Amazon Prime. Joy, during the run of Westworld, also made her feature directorial debut with the Warner Bros. Hugh Jackman movie, Reminiscence which went theatrical day-and-date on HBO Max during WarnerMedia’s 2021 pandemic distribution experiment.
Season four credits for Westsworld included Nolan and Joy as creators, EPs Abrams, Alison Schapker, Athena Wickham, Richard J. Lewis, Denise Thé, and Ben Stephenson with Kilter Films and Bad Robot producing in association with Warner Bros. Television; based off the Crichton movie.
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