Sure, Amazon’s new series “Utopia” is about comic book nerds that find out their beloved funny books are actually predictors of future world-ending problems, but the streaming service didn’t tell us it would be this bloody. But holy shit, within the opening seconds of the new NSFW trailer for the series, you see just how bloody “Utopia” actually is.
But perhaps the most interesting twists and turns with “Utopia” actually happened behind-the-scenes, as this Americanized version of a UK series took years to develop with Gillian Flynn and David Fincher involved. But then HBO passed on the show, Fincher left, and Flynn was left with scripts for a series that she couldn’t get greenlit.
READ MORE: ‘Utopia’: Gillian Flynn’s Take On Hero Worship Is Bloody Fun [Review]
“I put all that creative energy in — 10 hours [of content]. That’s five movies I could have written or a couple of books,” Flynn recently told THR about her initial disappointment when HBO canceled the version of the show she was going to do with David Fincher. She vowed to go on. “And it became just my pure Missouri mule stubbornness that I was like, ‘This goddamned thing is not going to be a waste of time.’”
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But she couldn’t help, but discuss the ‘C’mon, seriously?‘ disappointment in their nixed version.
“At the end, we were $9 million apart, not a crazy amount,” she added. “And we just kept thinking they’d meet it. I suppose we were playing a little bit of a game of chicken. But we had committed to a budget, and David is extremely precise, so he knew what it was going to [cost]. Ultimately, they liked it $80 million worth but not $90 million worth.”
Anyhow, here’s the official synopsis:
When the conspiracy in the elusive comic Utopia is real, a group of young fans come together to embark on a high-stakes twisted adventure to use what they uncover to save themselves, each other, and ultimately humanity. Starring John Cusack, Rainn Wilson, and Sasha Lane.
The twisted adventure in “Utopia” begins September 25 on Amazon Prime Video. Watch the new gruesome red-band trailer that Amazon Prime says, “WARNING: contains “uncensored and contains graphic violence.” Have fun with that.