‘Metropolis’ TV Series Not Going Forward Amid Writers Strike & Mounting Pre-Production Costs
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Sam Esmail’s years-in-the making adaptation of Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis has become one of the highest-profile casualties of the growing uncertainty in Hollywood driven by labor unrest against the background of economic headwinds.
The big-budget UCP series for Apple TV+, which had been prepping in Australia, has permanently shut down. The crew was just notified that the ambitious project will not move forward with production, which had been targeting a summer start.
UCP confirmed to Deadline that Metropolis has been scrapped. “Push costs and uncertainty related to the ongoing strike led to this difficult decision,” a rep for the studio said.
Metropolis had been in limbo for the past seven weeks. Since production drafts of the scripts for the large-scope, special effects-heavy series had not been finished before the May 2 start of the writers strike, that delayed setting budgets and other key elements of pre-production.
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