While J.J. Abrams is now most famous for his work in big blockbusters like some of the most recent Star Wars movies or Star Trek, he began to take off in pop culture in the world of television. It was the TV show Alias that put him on the map as an artist while his involvement (including directing the pilot) for Lost also bolstered his profile. The track record of Abrams in television is incredibly impressive, but that doesn't mean all his forays into small-screen entertainment have been successful or even managed to get off the ground. Case in point: the HBO program Demimonde, which was canned before it even started shooting.
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The saga behind Demimonde began in February 2018. This is when HBO ordered the show to series, a major vote of confidence in what Abrams was cooking (he was one of the program's creators and was tasked with penning the pilot). This is a continuation of the relationship between Abrams and HBO, as he served as an executive producer on Westworld and the then-forthcoming TV program Lovecraft Country. HBO muscling ahead of all other TV networks and streamers to secure the project at this point in time can also be seen as a reflection of the network's priorities circa. 2018. With the final season of Game of Thrones on the horizon in 2019, HBO was on the lookout for new game-changing genre shows. What better program to fit the mold than something from J.J. Abrams?
After this splashy announcement, total radio silence surrounded Demimonde. Part of the problem was that Abrams was now set to write and direct Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. His countless commitments to that massive blockbuster were going to keep him busy for the foreseeable future. However, in September 2019, HBO's parent company WarnerMedia signed a massive first-look deal with J.J. Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot. While Demimonde was always an important project, now it had the chance to be one of the first productions to emerge in a union between two Hollywood powerhouses.
Shortly before this development, news broke that the program's original showrunner, Bash Doran, had exited the project. A harbinger of greater difficulties to come for Demimonde, the show would at least manage to secure some new behind-the-scenes talent the following year in the earliest months of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is when Demimonde snagged Kira Snyder, Rand Ravish, and Far Shariat to serve as showrunners for the program. While the loss of Doran briefly seemed to be jeopardizing this HBO project, all seemed to be moving smoothly now.
Demimonde being on steadier ground was a concept reinforced in a June 2021 interview with Abrams, who revealed that a writer's room hadn't just been assembled but had been hard at work on Demimonde for the last year. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the crew of Demimonde wasn't able to do location scouting or other aspects of pre-production, all the focus was on just the writing.
While this wasn't the initial plan for Demimonde, Abrams was relieved since it meant the entire first season was written up. Even better, he and the program's writers were able to outline the trajectory of the entire TV show way ahead of time. So many times in his career, like on both of his Star Wars movies, Abrams had been rushing to meet a release date. Here, on Demimonde, he was relishing a chance to just take things slow. Cracking the story and making sure it was just right became the priority here, which seemed to bode well for the quality of the program whenever it made it to air.
Demimonde never seemed closer to finally happening than with the promising news in April 2022 that Danielle Deadwyler had been cast as the show's protagonist, Olive Reed. This is also when concrete plot details began to emerge on Demimonde, which would focus on a woman tasked with figuring out a massive conspiracy when she loses her husband and daughter in a scientific catastrophe that propels the duo to another world. As a cherry on top, this news also confirmed that Abrams would have some sort of directorial voice on the show, though it was not clear how many episodes he would direct. Four years after first being announced, Demimonde was ready to launch.
However, a month before this casting dropped, an even bigger event made headlines across the world. WarnerMedia was bought by Discovery. David Zazlav, CEO of Discovery, was now in charge of running all the new media entities at his fingertips, including HBO. A critical point in his new approach to this mega-entertainment giant would be cost-cutting at every turn. Just how drastic this tactic would become clear when Demimonde became one of the first casualties of this merger, getting canned at the end of May 2022 due to the show carrying a $200 million budget for its first season.
At the time of its demise, it was uncertain whether or not Demimonde could be shopped to other networks and streamers. The total radio silence on the production since this discouraging development indicates that this isn't on the table. With that, the first new J.J. Abrams TV show since Fringe in 2008 was dead. This program's demise also served as a harbinger of what would happen to other WarnerDiscovery projects like Batgirl or Chad in the months that followed. If a J.J. Abrams TV show wasn't safe, then nothing was under this new regime.
Years of work on Demimonde, including lengthy efforts at getting screenplays done during the COVID-19 pandemic, ended up being dismissed in the face of the new corporate owners in charge of HBO and its assets. Perhaps someday Abrams will create new works that end up referring to the themes of Demimonde or perhaps even reuse some of its characters or set pieces. For now, though, this program is awash in mystery and seems to be destined to remain that way for the foreseeable future. A new reminder of how well Abrams works in the medium of television will have to wait for another day.