Here's Why The Weeknd's Show 'The Idol' Was Quietly Canceled
Highlights
- The Idol, a show created by way of The Weeknd, explores the dark aspect of fame and depicts a worrying love affair between a rising megastar and a cult chief.
- Despite respectable preliminary viewership, the show won unfavourable critiques from critics and experienced a decline in ratings after the premiere.
- The production of The Idol was plagued with controversy, together with a change in administrators and inventive changes that ended in discontent amongst group participants. The show was ultimately canceled after only one season.
Several displays may have stirred some drama along the way, however things had never gotten as dangerous as they did on The Idol. The HBO collection intrigued fanatics early on with a solid that comes with Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, Lily-Rose Depp, BLACKPINK’s Jennie Kim, and YouTube star Troye Sivan.
Just a few months after the show released 5 episodes though, HBO quietly confirmed that The Idol is canceled.
‘The Idol’ Is A Show Created By The Weeknd
From the starting, Tesfaye knew he wanted to do a show about the dark side of fame. During an interview with Variety, The Weeknd discussed how The Idol is “nearly educational” and the way it strives to show “what comes with being extremely famous.”
The Idol tells the story of Jocelyn (Depp), a emerging famous person who begins a annoying love affair with nightclub businessman and cult chief Tedros (Tesfaye).
Now from the start, The Weeknd never set out to make his personality likable at all. While speaking with GQ, Tesfaye even goes on to describe his persona as “despicable” and “a psychopath.” Tedros is also “calculated” relating to his actions but in spite of the façade he presentations for everyone, the personality “has nothing, he’s pathetic.”
And while Tesfaye were running on The Idol from the get started, Euphoria creator Sam Levinson was later brought on after director Amy Seimetz exited the undertaking. Since then, Levinson has also been credited as one among the creators behind the show alongside Tesfaye’s generating spouse Reza Fahim.
HBO Canceled The Idol After Just One Season...
Now, The Idol will have encountered some bumps throughout its manufacturing, however the show still proved to be a tight performer as soon as it in spite of everything premiered. Various stories even point out that its viewership is fairly very similar to other collection tasks that are not based on a big IP, together with HBO’s The White Lotus.
That said, the show’s premiere couldn’t match the scores that Levinson’s Euphoria completed when its pilot aired.
And whilst The Idol premiere was fairly strong, stories also indicated that viewership dipped through the time that HBO released the second episode. HBO also didn’t share any longer viewership data as the show went on.
Overall, the opinions haven’t been excellent too, with the show receiving an excessively low 19% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. At the similar time, it simplest controlled to garner a median target audience ranking of 41%.
After airing five episodes, HBO confirmed that The Idol was finishing after only one season regardless of some indications that a second season was expected. The show’s run was also shortened, finishing with five episodes as a substitute of six as initially deliberate.
The Show Stirred Plenty Of Controversy
Yet, it wasn’t just ratings and reviews that proved to be a subject for The Idol. Behind the scenes, it was also plagued with a lot controversy and alleged drama. And it kind of feels that all the trouble started while the show was just in pre-production.
HBO first announced that it was ordering The Idol sequence again in November 2021. Since then, then again, it hasn’t presented many updates on the challenge all the way through production. A file from Rolling Stone published that resources weren’t even sure if The Idol could be launched at one level.
The first indicators of trouble was apparent when director Amy Seimetz, who also not too long ago worked with The Weeknd on the music video for The Idol theme song Double Fantasy, impulsively exited the show when it was already round Eighty p.c accomplished.
Throughout her time on the show, Seimetz was reportedly expected to deliver Euphoria-like effects however on a way smaller finances. Following her departure, HBO confirmed that The Idol was present process some major creative adjustments with Levinson taking on as director.
As quickly as Levinson signed on, everything already carried out was scrapped, which led to the show additional extend. The Euphoria author additionally set out to rewrite the whole thing simply as stories emerged that Tesfaye concept the show was leaning an excessive amount of toward the “female viewpoint.” That’s necessarily when the focal point of the show additionally changed.
While Depp’s Jocelyn remained the star of the show, the persona’s arc was changed to replicate a starlet who will get into a turbulent courting with a cult leader as an alternative of a starlet who fights to make a reputation for herself in the business after falling victim to an business figure.
Several team contributors weren’t pleased with the show’s new path with one source even describing it as a “r*** myth that any poisonous man would have in the show — after which the girl comes again for extra because it makes her track better.”
Reports also emerged that Tesfaye became unhappy with Depp’s personality becoming the focal point of the show and that the inventive overhaul took place as a result of he didn’t want the show to learn thru a “feminist lens.”
A supply also claimed that the singer sought after “one show that was all about him” and that Levinson was more than happy to deliver on that. That said, Tesfaye, who was additionally rumored to be difficult on set, had too much happening in his time table, and in the end, the show couldn’t revolve round his persona.
And while The Idol is finished, Tesfaye continues his foray into Hollywood projects. The musician is about to make his movie debut in an untitled film that also is set to big name Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan and Emmy nominee Jenna Ortega.
Just like on The Idol, The Weekend could also be co-writing the film with generating partner Fahim. Trey Edward Shults, who's directing it, may be writing the film with them. Ortega may be serving as an govt manufacturer.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErZ%2Bippeoe6S7zGiuobFdrK60edOhnGahlKS5bsDHnmSwnZWgu6V5wpqlnJ2cmrFw