Fans of Leigh Whannell’s science fiction film Upgrade I remember maybe there was a point where it looked like there was going to be a sequel. It was announced, then reworked into a TV series, and then…nothing, not a peep until last year when Whannell said the movie would remain a movie. one and done. What’s the problem?
Well, according to Tim Walsh, the producer of the film who was responsible for writing and presenting the series, the series had to face several obstacles before being canned. As he recently said BloodyDisgustinghe and Whannell sold the project to Peacock in 2019. Then there was a “tumultuous time” in the world, such as starting his writer’s room “on the day the world stopped” because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Another obstacle was the Upgrade the plot of the show: it would be about four criminals recently implanted with the STEM chip in hopes of reforming them, similar to A clockwork orange. Walsh believes it would have been risky to air it at a time when shows about police and criminals were “not popular”, likely referring to protests against police brutality in recent years and discussions on the role of television in cleaning them up. But the project’s biggest killer was above his pay grade — as he puts it, the writers were ready and the scripts assembled when a higher-up at Peacock was let go. Their possible replacement “then arrived, thinking they knew everything and abandoned the project”.
That’s where Walsh’s involvement with the series ended, and he was frank in saying that it “still hurts” that it didn’t get made, although he’s sure there were attempts to revive it without him. Despite the upheaval, he still wants to team up with Whannell again, so maybe one day he’ll get the chance to revive the team. Upgrade show or make things from it on something else.
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