J.J. Abrams’ run of TV misfortune seems to be continuing. Following reports of Warner Bros. disappointment at the lack of output from their deal with the filmmaker, it seems that his long-in-development Apple TV+ series My Glory Was I Had Such Friends has fallen by the wayside with the departure of star Jennifer Garner. Abrams and Garner previously worked together on the hit series Alias, but it seems that a scheduling conflict has seen Garner drop out of the lead role and Apple TV+ decide to cut their losses on the show, according to Deadline.
The series will be the second long-gestating project of Abrams’ to be canned in the last few months, after HBO passed on his live-action series Demimonde in June. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends would have adapted the memoir of Amy Silverstein and has been in development since and order was given back in 2018. Now the project will reportedly be undergoing some additional scripting work and will be shopped out to try and find a new home.
Despite this series now joining Demimonde in not moving forward at its original streamer, there have been encouraging reports that Abrams’ Bad Robot production company’s new Constantine series is “on solid ground” at HBO Max, and a live-action series based on the Speed Racer games is still moving forward at Apple TV+.
Warner Bros. Was Reportedly Unhappy With Abrams Lack of DC Output
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HBO Max’s future and that of the DCEU on the platform recently saw a massive amount of upheaval as Warner Bros. Discovery’s new CEO David Zaslav tore into big-budget HBO Max-bound offering such as Batgirl. However, before that, the company was said to be less than impressed with the content coming from their £250 million deal with J.J. Abrams to develop several DC and other projects for HBO Max.
Back in May, it was believed that Abrams was still expected to be pushing forward with a Justice League Dark series of movies for the streaming platform, with the Madame X and Constantine projects in development alongside a Batman: Caped Crusader animated series, and non-DC series Demimonde and Subject to Change. However, there is currently no real idea of how many of these projected are likely to make it to completion.
Of course, Abrams isn’t exactly short on work right now despite these reports. He acts as executive producer on Westworld, which has just completed its fourth season, and is linked to upcoming projects such as Stephen King’s Billy Summers, video-game adaptations Half-Life and Portal, as well as untitled films in the Superman, Star Trek and Cloverfield franchises. With many of these new projects having just been announced or in very early pre-production, there is no telling how many will go the same way as My Glory Was I Had Such Friends, but it is obvious that despite having some massive movies and TV shows in his portfolio, even someone like J.J. Abrams isn’t completely infallible to having projects rejected.
