Despite HBO canceling the series and scrubbing it from its library, Jonathan Nolan still wants to finish the “Westworld” story. But does anybody else, even the show’s old fans, feel the same way?
EW reports (via THR) that Nolan plans to make the ex-flagship series’ fifth and final season, even if HBO has moved on. “Yes. 100 Percent,” he told THR when asked about if he still wants to make the show’s original ending. “We’re completionists,” Nolan continued, speaking on behalf of his wife and “Westworld” co-creator Lisa Joy. “It took me eight years and a change of director to get “Interstellar” made. We’d like to finish the story we started.”
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Too bad for Nolan & Joy that almost no one else feels the same way. After poor ratings and reviews for “Westworld” Season 4, HBO canceled the show before its planned final season in November 2022. Then, a month later, HBO Max (now Max) pulled the entire series from its streaming service: a casualty of the infamous Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Once a flagship series, “Westworld” now lives a vicarious, all-but-forgotten existence on free and ad-supported platforms.
That’s a lowly fate for a series that once nabbed 54 Emmy nominations, including 9 victories. But Nolan isn’t fazed by his former show’s relegation to the dregs of streaming. “The amount of people you can reach with a free, ad-supported service is vastly higher than with a subscription service,” he said, defending his series. And he still holds “Westworld” in high esteem. “I’m so f*cking proud of what we made. It was an extraordinary experience,” he continued. “I think it would be a mistake to look back and only feel regret. But there’s still very much a desire to finish it.”
Unfortunately, HBO doesn’t share Nolan’s desire, as they have new flagships series like “The Last Of Us,” “House Of The Dragon,” and “The White Lotus” to buoy them into the future. And Nolan’s future in TV may hinge on how his latest series “Fallout” does on Prime Video later this month. If that show ends up a critical disaster, then Nolan may be relegated to the sidelines, much like “Westworld.”
But Nolan stands by his creative choices, and doesn’t see the fate of his ex-hit series as a harsh lesson about the era of “Peak TV.” “If the ‘lesson’ was to ease back on the complexity or the weirdness of something, I don’t want to learn that lesson,” Nolan stated. A fair point, Mr. Nolan, but those who watched “Westworld” Season 4 agree with it only in theory, not in execution.
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