With Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss jumping from HBO to Netflix, it appears it's lights out for their controversial Confederate project.
Benioff and Weiss just signed a $200 million overall deal with Netflix that "wipes Confederate off HBO's books," reports The Hollywood Reporter. Vulture's Josef Adalian further confirms with sources that the show is now dead and won't move forward without Benioff and Weiss.
HBO in 2017 announced plans for this series from the Game of Thrones duo that imagines an alternate timeline in which the southern states seceded from the Union and slavery is still legal in America, immediately sparking controversy and calls for the project to be scrapped. HBO would later say it "screwed up" in its attempt to explain the show's "complicated subject," but while the project was delayed, the network earlier this year insisted this had nothing to do with the outrage.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
HBO Programming President Casey Bloys recently signaled that Confederate would probably be off if Benioff and Weiss landed a deal somewhere else, saying, "anything they have with us would likely not go forward," Deadline reports. This seems to suggest audiences will never Confederate on the screen in any form, barring the possibility that, as Vox's Emily VanDerWerff speculates, Benioff and Weiss try to sell the project somewhere else after HBO's option expires. Then again, as she writes, "why would they?"
For now, Benioff and Weiss are set to work on a new Star Wars trilogy, leaving behind the Confederate and Game of Thrones firestorms for a franchise, clearly, free of any controversy or tumult whatsoever.
-
Groypers: the alt-right group pulled into the foregroundThe Explainer The network is led by alt-right activist Nick Fuentes
-
10 concert tours to see this upcoming fallThe Week Recommends Concert tour season isn't over. Check out these headliners.
-
How to put student loan payments on pauseThe Explainer If you are starting to worry about missing payments, deferment and forbearance can help
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wifespeed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play
