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JJ Abrams Sci Fi Drama Demimonde Finds Itself At HBO

Published

9 years ago

February 2, 2018

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Feet In Both Worlds

♦ JJ Abrams is a busy man. His Castle Rock comes out on Hulu this summer, he has produced the third Cloverfield film and of course there is the small matter of Star Wars: Episode IX. Now news has reached us from The Hollywood Reporter that his new sci-fi drama Demimonde will be shown on HBO. Here’s the details from THR…

J.J. Abrams is expanding his relationship with HBO.

Following a bidding war with Apple, the premium cable network has landed the first TV series that the prolific producer has written since 2008’s Fringe. HBO has handed out a straight-to-series order for Demimonde, expanding its relationship with Westworld exec producer Abrams. An episode count has not yet been officially announced.

Shopped as a spec script, sources say the Abrams drama is about a family — consisting of a mother who works as a scientist, her husband and their young daughter — who all get into a terrible car crash. After the mother winds up in a coma, her daughter begins digging through her experiments in the basement and winds up transporting to another land amid a world’s battle against a monstrous, oppressive force. Her father then follows her into this new world. HBO is only describing the series as “an epic and intimate sci-fi fantasy drama.”

Sources note that Abrams was impressed with what the premium cable network did with Westworld, making HBO the front-runner for the series over deep-pocketed rival Apple.

Abrams, who created/co-created Felicity, Alias, Lost and Fringe, penned the script and exec produces via his Warner Bros. Television-based Bad Robot Productions banner topper Ben Stephenson. In addition to exec producing Westworld, Abrams and his Bad Robot banner also serve in the same capacity on Lovecraft Country, a straight-to-series anthological horror drama from Jordan Peele and Misha Green.

Abrams has been active in the TV space as an exec producer, most recently working on HBO’s Westworld (with Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy), Showtime’s Roadies (with Cameron Crowe), CBS’ Person of Interest (with Nolan) and Hulu mini 11.22.63 (with Bridget Carpenter). He next has Hulu’s Stephen King anthology Castle Rock, from writers Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomas, due from Warner Bros. Television. On the feature side, Abrams is next writing and directing Star Wars: Episode IX, and counts the Cloverfield and Star Trek franchises among his credits.

For HBO, the Abrams series joins a drama slate that also includes Westworld, the final season of Game of Thrones, Big Little Lies, True Detective, The Deuce, the upcoming debut of Sharp Objects, Alan Ball’s Here and Now and Succession, among others.

The Abrams show comes as HBO is plotting out its future sans Game of Thrones, with the abbreviated final season to air in 2019. HBO is developing five potential prequel series, with programming president Casey Bloys adamant about not launching any potential Game of Thrones offshoot until at least a year after the flagship ends. That would pave the way for a high-concept genre drama like the one from Abrams at HBO. Apple, which also aggressively pursued the drama, already picked up a space drama from Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander). Sources have informed THR that HBO was always considered the front-runner to land the Abrams series given the cabler’s relationship with the writer-producer.

The Hollywood Reporter JJ Abrams Demimonde News