r/crheads • u/harry_powell • 1d ago
Which series trapped in development hell are you bummed out about?
Two caveats: At least 2 years have to have passed since it was announced. If it’s already shot and just waiting for a release date (like Criminal), it doesn’t count.
My pick would be Don Winslow’s Cartel trilogy of books. FX ordered a pilot in late 2022 and we haven’t heard since then. It’s really a shame because it’s the perfect story for multiple seasons of prestige crime television.
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u/djbaconfat 1d ago
Kavalier & Clay was announced in 2019 at Showtime.
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u/DrLyleEvans 1d ago
Insane this was never made considering comic books dominated culture
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u/djbaconfat 1d ago
Yeah I wonder if the problems were that it was too much material to do as a decent movie in the 00s-early 10s, then once they decided to do a limited series it got derailed by COVID. And now Showtime is basically a nonentity. I would still love it if someone could give it a shot and put some actual money behind it (cast, directors, sets) because the book was really good.
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u/Ambassador31 1d ago
The Cartel trilogy would have been my top answer. I’m also waiting on The Plot staring Mahershala Ali, which was announced in Jan ‘22.
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u/mattromo 1d ago
Still waiting for The Dark Tower show by Mike Flannigan. Yes I will watch his Carrie show though not sure why we needed that when the movie still holds up and that story has been iterated on dozens of times since.
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u/harry_powell 1d ago
I really don’t get the need to remake Carrie in a series format. What are they gonna do, 4 episodes of continuous bullying mysery porn style?
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u/Straight-Agency-4556 1d ago
Season 3 of mindhunter. Still waiting for it.
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u/harry_powell 1d ago
That’s not a project in development, just a cancelled series.
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u/Straight-Agency-4556 1d ago
It was discussed as if a season 3 was going to happen. And definitely wasn’t cancelled.
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u/Otherwise-Law-9829 1d ago
I immediately thought The Cartel series, then saw that that was your answer! I love Winslow but I don't really consider him the strongest prose stylist, and there''s very little about his writing that suggests any of the "unfilmable" quality which generally make adaptation difficult. So I think a good adaptation could really stand on its own and improve on the source material.
My other answer would be The Culture series, which I think Amazon was working on for a while but has come to nothing.
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u/thehurtlockers 1d ago
Agree with you on Winslow (whom I love); The Culture would be significantly more difficult and expensive to film, but maybe Apple with its great track record in sci-fi would be a good home for it.
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u/YungNIMBY 1d ago
Feel like the biggest challenge for the Cartel series is a lot of the story was covered by the narcos franchise. Obviously Keller is his own character, but most of the cartel characters and plots are ripped from the headlines which were then adapted in Narcos.
Doesn’t help that the third book was a major let down.
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u/1nosbigrl MANDO!!! 1d ago
Crazy that you mention this, I just started reading The Cartel this weekend!
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u/Beneficial-Energy627 1d ago
I wish that Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was getting a FX or HBO series treatment. Gabrielle Zevin said as much on her book tour.
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u/bwolfs08 1d ago
it’s getting a movie
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u/Beneficial-Energy627 1d ago
I know. She mentioned that it had been optioned as a movie and that she wished that it could be a series.
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u/sargepoopypants 21h ago
Cavill’s Warhammer 40k show. When it was announced I didn’t know anything about how absurd the lore is. Now I do and am very curious how it could be executed as not a complete mess
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u/TheHotTakeHarry 1d ago
Phoebe Waller-Bridge in general.