We’ve been reporting for nearly a year on the sporadic progress of the pilot for the FX series Powers, based on the comicbook series by Brian Michael Bendis.
Unfortunately, the show now appears to be in trouble. FX executives saw the pilot before the end of the year and decided not to pick it up – telling writer Chuck Eglee to rewrite portions of the show to be shot again.
FX president and GM John Landgraf, at a press conference this weekend, told reporters that he has received the rewrite, but acknowledged the show’s future still wasn’t secure, noting the changes “would require pretty extensive reshoots of the pilot.”
He also confirmed that “right now we’re in the process of deciding whether to pull the trigger on the reshoot.”
Landgraf, himself a claimed fan of the original comic, went on to describe how difficult it has been trying to create an adaptation for the franchise, citing the dark tones of the source material and the incompatibility of some scenes with television.
“When you think about a 10 o’clock drama – a Sopranos-esque drama or any serious drama – there’s never been a feature film or TV series that’s taken the super hero genre into that type of tonality, it’s never been done and it’s just really a struggle,” he said in a statement quoted by the Hollywood Reporter. “It can be done, it’s just proving really difficult.”
It might be several months before FX decides if they want to see a reshoot of the Powers pilot.
Powers is a comic book series which centers on a pair of detectives in a special division which investigates superhero oriented crimes.
One detective is a former strongman hero, who has lost his powers, but retains his deep understanding of the superhero community. The other is a young woman who has only just discovered her own secret superpowers.
As with most such stories the greatness is in the dynamic between the protagonists, as they explore the story, and as the audience explores the implications of a world full of superheroes from the outside.
The series has been running steady, though under a couple different headers, since 2000, and so has a deep store of storyline to draw on.
Powers was originally planned for the 2012 Pilot group, and if picked up, will air this fall.
