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Uncertain future for The Weeknd’s show ‘The Idol’
A recent report says that the show has gone off the rails, and its future is uncertain
The upcoming HBO series ‘The Idol’, created by The Weeknd and directed by ‘Euphoria’ director Sam Levinson, has recently come out as being “in shambles” with an “uncertain future”.
The series has been hyped up for months, with still no firm release date announced, and Sam Levinson’s involvement has reportedly turned the series into a darker, grittier version of ‘Euphoria’ with far more explicitness than originally expected.
A series of delays
The first footage of the series was teased last July and was billed as “the sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood” coming “from the sick and twisted minds of the creator of Euphoria, Sam Levinson, and Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye,” by HBO.
The story follows Jocelyn, an up-and-coming pop star played by Depp who navigates the music industry’s darker side when she meets Tedros played by The Weeknd, a self-help guru nightclub owner who is actually a cult leader.
‘The Idol’ was ordered to series back in 2021, with HBO hoping to air the new series in 2022 to replace the Sunday evening spot left vacant by ‘House of the Dragon’ in October. Three trailers for the show have since gone out, with HBO only stating the show is airing sometime in 2023.
Multiple show rewrites and a complete overhaul
Now, in a recent article by Rolling Stone, 13 cast and crew members for ‘The Idol’ have come out to say the show is a “s—show”.
When Levinson came on to replace Amy Seimetz as director, the sources say the director was working with “half-written scripts” and “tight deadlines”. Seimetz had been writing and directing in order to meet deadlines, with multiple series of revisions.
When Levinson came on board, the cast members allege that he overhauled the show’s original message on the dark side of fame, turning it into a glorification of violence towards Depp’s character instead.
“It’s almost such an extreme that it’s like, there is no message,” one crew member told Rolling Stone.
“There is no point. They’re just trying to see how much of a reaction they can get.”
The Weeknd fires back against Rolling Stone
In a new Instagram post captioned “@rollingstone did we upset you ?”, The Weeknd seems to have responded to the Rolling Stone article, sharing a clip with Depp and himself in character speaking with an unnamed character played by Dan Levy, calling Rolling Stone “irrelevant”.