According to Deadline, David Fincher’s US remake of the Channel 4 series Utopia for HBO is dead, with its actors released from their commitments.
HBO had ordered the adaptation of the show last year, written by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn. Fincher would have directed the entire season. It seems that the production team and the channel were at odds about production costs.
The original Channel 4 show followed a group of people obsessed with an underground graphic novel, rumored to predict a number of upcoming disasters, who try and unravel the mysteries of the book while a shadowy organization known as The Network begins to target them.
There’s no official word on which actors were slated to star in the show, but Deadline noted that Rooney Mara, Colm Feore, Eric McCormack, Dallas Roberts, Jason Ritter, Brandon Scott and Agyness Deyn had all been rehearsing before the show ran into problems.
The television show had been optioned by HBO, and it’s not clear if the project will continue forward in another form.