Given the people behind the cameras – producers Jonah Nolan, Lisa Joy, J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, and some of those who will appear before them (Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden and Evan Rachel Wood to name but three), it’s hardly surprising that HBO would push the new version of Westworld into series production as quickly as it did. With a new image of Ed Harris from the show online, Entertainment Weekly has talked to Nolan and Joy about their vision for the show.
This being a co-production of a Nolan and Abrams, they’re careful not to give away too much. But they do explain the appeal of taking on a concept originated by Michael “Jurassic Park” Crichton four decades ago. “What you feel in the film is there’s this larger world that he barely has time to explore. It leaves you breathless. Westworld goes from one fucking massive idea to the next,” says Nolan.
“At one point in there, he references why the robots are misbehaving. He describes the concept of the computer virus. When they were shooting the film it was the same year, or the year before, the appearance of the first actual computer virus. This is why Crichton was so brilliant. He knew so much about the technologies that were about to emerge, spent so much time thinking about how they would actually work. Consider the fact that the original film was written prior to the existence of even the first video game. Think about massive multiplayer roll-playing games, and the complexity and richness of video game storytelling. When he wrote Westworld, none of that existed! So it’s a film that anticipated so many advances in technology. The film has a structure that barrels forward—there’s this unstoppable android hell-bent on vengeance—and it preceded The Terminator by ten years.”
The series, of course, will expand upon the film’s world of a theme park for adults where they can live out their wildest desires without consequences. At least, until something happens with the artificial life forms that inhabit the place... “People who come into this place are looking for — and this is the irony of it — the authentic experience. They’re looking for not the virtual version, but the real version, the tactile version. Interestingly we’ve arrived at what the original film] created — fully immersible virtual worlds. 'What happens in Westworld stays in Westworld.' It’s a place where you can be whoever the fuck you want to be and there are no consequences. No rules, no limitations.”
For more from the producers, head to EW. No air-date has been given for the show yet, but expect it sometime this year.