The Horizon TV show is reportedly no longer moving forward with the assigned showrunner, Steve Blackman.
We had reported in 2022 that Netflix had picked up Horizon for an upcoming show, to be helmed by Steve Blackman, the same showrunner who had made Netflix’s take on superheroes, The Umbrella Academy, a success.
Blackman seemed to be a good pick to work on this show, as he seemed to be on the same standing as Craig Mazin, who found success in Chernobyl before working on The Last of Us on HBO with Neil Druckmann. Another set of comparable showrunners would be Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, who had been successful in their modern day adaptation of Westworld, before working on this year’s crossover hit, Fallout, for Amazon.
Horizon also seemed to be a bankable property for a video game to film or show adaptation. Launched by Guerrilla Games with 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn, the franchise imagines a post-apocalyptic America taken over by animal-like automatons, and with human civilization reverting to smaller tribes of mixed races and nationalities all across the country.
Indeed, Horizon is peak science fiction, and it arrived at a time when Hollywood has a growing appetite for the genre. Aside from the abovementioned Fallout, The Last of Us, and Westworld, we are looking at a year that has seen the release of a new Godzilla x Kong movie, a new Planet of the Apes movie, and fresh new streaming show adaptations of WondLa and The Three Body Problem.
Unfortunately, this potential will have to go unmet for now, because Netflix has good reason to cancel the show. In particular, a new report from the Rolling Stone claims that Steve Blackman has fostered a culture of toxicity and retaliation in producing The Umbrella Academy, and is now facing scrutiny from Netflix. Potentially, there are already consequences.
Cherry Roundtree’s report for Rolling Stone says this:
“The enthusiastic response to the series (The Umbrella Academy) proved Blackman could handle that pressure, and by 2020, Netflix offered him an overall development deal reportedly worth $50 million. The streamer announced in 2022 that Blackman would spearhead the adaptation of the popular video game Horizon Zero Dawn and create the original outer-space thriller series Orbital as part of that deal.
Rolling Stone has learned that the two projects are no longer moving forward with Blackman. (A representative for Blackman noted that the showrunner “has a long, ongoing, and close working relationship with Netflix” and “continues to work on new projects.” They added that Blackman “signed a new multi-year deal earlier this year.” A rep for Netflix declined to comment.)”
For now, it is unclear if the Horizon show will be cancelled completely, but the initial deal made it appear that Netflix took the contract because they were confident that Blackman could make it. There is uncertainty if they can find a new showrunner or production company to produce, or if they will let this project go for Sony to find new takers.
We wish the best for the people who were harmed by Blackman’s actions, and this also seems to have dragged Sony and Guerrilla Games along with it. Of course, they had nothing to do with this situation given the facts provided, and don’t deserve to be the collateral from his alleged behavior. Hopefully, they can find a way to get a Horizon show moving forward, even if it isn’t with Netflix.
