Gattaca Series Canceled By Showtime
Four months after we broke the news it was being made, the in-development Gattaca series has been canceled by Showtime.
With a number of moving factors, including the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike as well as the ever-changing landscape of streaming media, there have been heavy casualties in the upcoming lineup of television shows. According to a write-up from Variety, a number of new programs have been cut from the Showtime lineup specifically, including the long-awaited Gattaca series, which was first announced back in March.
Some fans may have been acutely aware of the upcoming cancellation since it was recently announced that President of Entertainment and Youth Brands at VicavomCBS Chris McCarthy had recently taken over operations at Showtime, with an explicit focus on pairing down the network’s slate of shows.
As an immediate result of McCarthy’s efforts, the Gattaca series has been sent to the glue factory alongside other previously announced series, such as Mandy Patinkin’s Seasoned, as well as upcoming projects titled Split, and Sweetness.
With all four of these projects being handled by outside production studios, the respective companies will now have the option to shop them elsewhere, so there is still hope for a revival of any of the un-produced content.
In addition to cutting loose a host of series that haven’t been made to air yet, Showtime is also ending one of its flagship shows, Billions, which will conclude with its upcoming seventh season. Billions has run on the premium network since 2016, touting a number of A-list actors in its cast, including Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, Malin Akerman, and Breaking Bad‘s David Costabile.
Given that Gattaca and other upcoming shows have been axed, it seems clear that Showtime has been herded into the latest Paramount+ business strategy, which seems to be pairing down new and exciting ventures in favor of recognizable IP.
While it tracks with recent business choices from the streamer to cut brand new productions such as Seasoned, Split, and Sweetness from its upcoming slate of programming, it does seem a bit odd that the Gattaca series didn’t make the cut, as the show was set to adapt the events of the popular 1997 film of the same name.
The original film starred Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Maya Rudolph, and Dean Norris. The production of the film also marks the first time Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman met one another, years before they would eventually fall in love and have their daughter, Stranger Things star Maya Hawke.
While not much is known about the original series plot for Gattaca, most fans were laboring under the assumption that the series would adapt the events of the dystopian sci-fi film, essentially rebooting the franchise with a fresh new perspective. Given the reaction to our exclusive report on the series, fans of the film are going to be devastated over the news.
Of course, we may still have the chance to find out if the series is picked up by another network, such as AMC or HBO though the future of the franchise seems fairly bleak for now as studios continue to fail to reach an acceptable agreement with the WGA, effectively placing a halt on most Hollywood productions.
