Sam Esmail talks about the cancellation of his Metropolis series: “It broke my heart”

The creator of Mr Robot worked for years on the adaptation of Fritz Lang’s film.

Metropolisthe iconic 1927 science fiction work directed by Fritz Lang, is itself an adaptation of Thea Von Harbou’s novel published in 1925. A true pioneer of science fiction cinema, the film had left its mark on the costume metal android woman called Machine mensch (literally human machine in German). The special effects, innovative and unprecedented for the time, left their mark, notably that ofAlfred Hitchcock who used the famous Schüfftan effect to Blackmail (1929). But Metropolis was also a huge critical and commercial failure upon its release, before being rehabilitated.

Sam Esmail is not his first science fiction serial project. The director had already used his skills as screenwriter, director and executive producer for the series Mr.Robot, on which he worked for more than 7 years. The serial adaptation of Metropolis represented a significant challenge which suggested a potential financial abyss if things did not go as planned. The SAG-AFTRA screenwriters’ strike led to the cancellation of the project.

“Obviously, it broke my heart,” Esmail told Deadline. “But with the strike, we all understood. In Australia, I was able to work with some remarkable people editing the production. It was a very good experience, I have absolutely no regrets.”

The director worked for years on this ambitious project of adaptation of Metropolis, which was to be broadcast on Apple TV+. The series, produced by Universal Content Productions (UCP), was in preparation in Australia and was supposed to start production this summer, but the studio preferred to abandon the project. “Costs and uncertainty related to the ongoing strike led to this difficult decision“, explains a UCP representative.

Filming was to take place in the state of Victoria, where it was expected to generate almost 4,000 jobs, using one of the largest virtual production infrastructures in the world, according to the April 2022 announcement. Draft scripts for the series had not been completed before the May 2 strike, delaying the setting of budgets and other key elements of pre-production.

Despite the decision, Sam Esmail does not lose hope – he does not exclude the possibility that the project will be reanimated, like the emblematic robot Maria, at the heart of the dystopian diegesis.

“As of today, it’s officially over, but it’s Hollywood, who knows?“, concludes the director.