Fans were shocked and disappointed when HBO canceled its epic sci-fi saga Westworld in 2022. The critically acclaimed drama was the most-watched first season of any HBO original series, but viewership declined in subsequent seasons.
That, coupled with the high costs of the lush and expansive series, doomed what was once the network’s flagship series. Adding insult to injury, HBO Max removed the series from its platform entirely to avoid paying residuals. This was a baffling choice given the series’ popularity and a blow to working actors and writers who depend on those residuals to make a living.
Despite series creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s plans for a fifth and final season, HBO canceled Westworld after its fourth season. Nolan has moved onto a sunnier Western-tinged post-apocalyptic adventure with Amazon’s Fallout series but still hopes to return to Westworld one day.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Nolan discussed the possibility of finishing Westworld with either a feature film or a comic book series, saying
“Yes, 100 percent. We’re completionists. It took me eight years and a change of director to get Interstellar made. We’d like to finish the story we started.”
Nolan added,
“Look, my career began on CBS [with Person of Interest]. The amount of people you can reach with a free, ad-supported service [like Roku and Tubi, which had Westworld last year] is vastly higher than with a subscription service. That part didn’t bother me. But in terms of finishing the story, you understand that you get the time that you get, sometimes it’s as much as you want, sometimes it’s not. I’m so fucking proud of what we made. It was an extraordinary experience. I think it would be a mistake to look back and only feel regret [over how it ended]. But there’s still very much a desire to finish it.”
Series star Evan Rachel Wood, who played host Dolores Abernathy, also longs to finish the series. In a separate Hollywood Reporter interview, she said of the series cancellation, “We didn’t get to have that and so after building an arc and a character for almost 10 years and not getting the payoff at the end to see where it was all going — I think for us and the audience, it was awful in a lot of ways.”
Wood added, “I asked the creators after we got canceled, ‘Can you please just tell me how you’re going to end?’ And they wouldn’t tell me, … I think because, I don’t know, maybe somehow, someway, in some iteration we’ll get to finish it, but I still don’t know. It does still keep me up at night.”
Westworld is currently available for rental and purchase only.
(featured image: HBO)
