Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor is in talks with HBO to develop his alternate-reality game which he created to accompany his 2007 album, “Year Zero.” The game/album picks up in a dystopian 2022 America where George W. Bush has instated himself as a dictator, controls the masses via a tainted water supply and wages war on subversives.
In a recent interview with the L.A. Times, Reznor declared the possibility for a series is looking good, “I just pitched to HBO two weeks ago in L.A. It went great. Ideally we are trying to get them to do a two-year limited series.”
With the current state of HBO, losing such flagship series as “The Sopranos” and “The Wire,” it doesn’t seem ridiculous that they would go to an interactive rock album for inspiration.
The idea sounds mildly interesting, for a little bit, but does it really have the ability to hold our ever-decreasing attention spans as a television series? And what happens when Bush leaves office, won’t it take the punch out of the entire message? The obvious holes may not matter, as HBO is feeling the pressure and finding its future very bleak unless they can find another hit television show, because as of now, AMC is beating them at their own game (even without nudity).
