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The Idol will be going through some changes. On Monday, HBO said the forthcoming series — created by The Weeknd and Euphoria‘s Sam Levinson — will be adjusting its cast and crew to “evolve” the vision of the show.
“The Idol’s creative team continues to build, refine, and evolve their vision for the show and they have aligned on a new creative direction,” HBO said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The production will be adjusting its cast and crew accordingly to best serve this new approach to the series. We look forward to sharing more information soon.”
HBO orderedThe Idol to series last November, and its cast was set to include The Weeknd, Troye Sivan, Lily-Rose Depp, Tunde Adebimpe, Anne Heche, among others. It’s unclear what changes will be made to the show, which was set to follow a self-help guru behind a modern-day cult and the complicated relationship he builds with a pop star.
“When the multi-talented Abel ‘the Weeknd’ Tesfaye, Reza Fahim, and Sam Levinson brought usThe Idol, it was clear their subversive, revelatory take on the cult of the music industry was unlike anything HBO had ever done before,” Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, said in a statement about the show at the time.
In 2020, The Weeknd spoke toRolling Stoneabout his interest in writing for film, noting he had a secretive screenplay in the works.
“This is my first time even opening up to anything, because I had to spend the last decade invested in this project, the Weeknd,” he said. “It really does consume me, so I’ve learned to step away from it a little bit, to miss it a little bit.”
“I just want to be a filmmaker,” the singer added. “I want to make great cinema.”
