Sam Esmail's series, an adaptation of the film by Fritz Lang, the matrix of world SF cinema shot in 1927, was canceled even before the start of its production scheduled for September. According to Deadline, delays due to the writers' strike in Hollywood and rising estimated production costs (especially special effects) got the better of the series, which was to be produced by UCP for AppleTV+.
The rich and the others
Metropolis, a monumental work by Fritz Lang, is undoubtedly one of the most analyzed and dissected films in the history of cinema. In 1926, Fritz Lang and his wife (Thea von Harbou, who would become one of the pillars of German cinema during the Third Reich) imagine life in a large metropolis of the 21st century. On one side, a handful of wealthy people living in the upper part of the city, on the other, hordes of workers and poor people, locked up in the underground and forced to watch over the smooth running of Metropolis.
Expressionist but not only
Lang's last film before his exile to the United States, Metropolis, a pharaonic project of 7 million marks, can be considered as the matrix of cinematographic SF. The design of the skyscrapers (inspired in Lang by a trip to New York two years earlier), the scale of the staging and his vision of the future make this film a unique and premonitory work, which will mark generations of filmmakers. , up to Ridley Scott for Blade Runner. And will even lay the foundations for Heroic Fantasy and Space Opera.
The restored original Metropolis available in box set at Potemkine
While waiting for a hypothetical future Metropolis series (we don't despair for Sam Esmail, who worked on the series for more than seven years), the original film is available in a magnificent Blu-Ray/DVD box set from Potemkine.
