HBO’s ‘Westworld’ Shuts Down Production, 2016 Premiere in Trouble?

It’s been some time since HBO made any official announcements of its upcoming Westworld remake, and notably odd that the series garnered little mention at the recent TCA press tour. There may be some, or rather more trouble behind the scenes now, as production has temporarily shut down. Will it affect the as-yet-unannounced premiere?

Variety reports that where the series was originally scheduled to wrap production in November 2015, a two-month hiatus will see production pick up again in March 2016. According to HBO, executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy needed the break to complete the first season’s final four scripts.

Says HBO:

As we head into the final phase of production on ‘Westworld,’ we’ve made the decision to take a brief hiatus in order to get ahead of the writing.

The series will reportedly still make its 2016 premiere date, though HBO still keeps mum as to when we’d expect that in the first place.

Bizarre sex scandals aside, Bad Robot’s Westworld remakes the 1973 tale as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.” Person of Interest creator and The Dark Knight co-writer Jonathan Nolan wrote the script with Burn Notice scribe Lisa Joy, with Nolan directing the pilot. Nolan and Joy will executive produce with Abrams, Jerry Weintraub and Bryan Burk.

The new series employs among its cast Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, X-Men star James Marsden, The Hunger Games and Boardwalk Empire star Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, Raising Hope lead Shannon Woodward, 300 star Rodrigo Santoro, Angela Sarafyan, Simon Quarterman, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Ben Barnes, Jimmi Simpson, and Clifton Collins, Jr. Some of the cast members playing androids (Marsden, Newton, Wood) may also end up killed off and brought back with a new personality, similar to how American Horror Story enables its cast to play different characters.

For those unfamiliar with the original 1973 Yul Brynner-James Brolin film, Westworld told the story of a future resort wherein guests pay to live out time period fantasies brought to life by sophisticated human-like androids, before the robots began malfunctioning and killing the resort’s crew. The film spawned the sequel Futureworld, and eventually the short-lived ‘80s TV series Beyond Westworld.

Check out the teaser again below, while we wait.