Back in 2015 David Fincher and Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects) had a remake series of Dennis Kellys’ incredible Utopia all ready to go at HBO until the broadcaster got nervous about the $100 million budget and pulled the plug.
We assumed that the project had simply died, but today Amazon announced that it has given Flynn’s take on Utopia a straight-to-series order of nine episodes. In the show, “A group of young adults, who meet online, are mercilessly hunted by a shadowy deep state organisation after they come into possession of a near mythical, cult, underground graphic novel – they discover the conspiracy theories in the comic’s pages may actually be real and are forced in to the dangerous, unique and ironic position of saving the world.”
There’s nothing in the release about whether or not Fincher is still involved, but Flynn will be the creator, executive producer and showrunner. Dennis Kelly will be an executive producer on the project.
In a statement, she said “Utopia is pure creative catnip to me. Dennis Kelly’s show blew my mind, and he has been so incredibly generous in letting me crack open his world and play around in it and make it my own weird, wild place. Utopia is all about exploring resonant issues within dark, twisted storytelling—it’s a series that’s urgent and current and a little holy-crap!, but a hell of a lot of a fun.“
Before it was canned, Fincher’s Utopia was set to star Rooney Mara, Colm Feore, Eric McCormack, Dallas Roberts, Jason Ritter, Brandon Scot and Agyness Deyn. We’ll have to wait and see if any of those actors return or if the whole process has started from scratch.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t watched the original Channel 4 series, get on it. It’s one of the best shows to have been in on in years, and it’s a damn shame it only lasted two series.
Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.