METROPOLIS REVISITED
Posted: 020417

Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail is working on a limited series based on Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis for Universal Cable Productions. The budget for each episode will be $10 million dollars. The project has just begun development and will not be seen for 2-3 years which will allow Esmail to do seasons four and five of Mr. Robot. It isn’t clear just how much work he will actually do but he will be in control of every aspect of it. The series will take place in a future society where wealthy industrialists rule the city from high-rise tower complexes as a lower class of underground-dwelling workers toil constantly to operate the machines that provide its power. The attempt to bring the society down will be at the hands of two lovers from opposite sides of the system. There will be a writers’ room for the project but it will involve only 2-3 writers who are figuring out how the series will work as opposed to them writing scripts. Once done the project will be shopped to various cable and streaming outlets. UCP and Esmail are also developing a TV series based on the new podcast Homecoming. The six-part experimental-fiction podcast follows a caseworker at a secret government facility, her ambitious supervisor, and a soldier desperate to rejoin civilian life. That project is getting the attention of actors who have never done TV before.