Is "Westworld" HBO"s Next Big Hit?

In The Weeks Ahead: Westworld (HBO)

Because theres so much mystery surrounding the show and because it seems so ambitious, its probably easy for people to assume its just a disaster, said Ms. Wood, who plays an increasingly skeptical host named Delores. But I think theyll be pleasantly surprised.

Early reviews have been mostly raves, praising the transportive quality and sophisticated themes about human nature and consciousness. And the performances, especially from Ms. Wood, Mr. Hopkins as the possibly malevolent mastermind Dr. Robert Ford and Ms. Newton as the madam Maeve, are nuanced and layered.

The show has taken a premise that could be seen as sort of primitive and simply about revenge and explored it on an emotionally complex level, Mr. Abrams said.

He had been pondering a Westworld reboot off and on since discussing the concept more than 20 years ago with Crichton, who died in 2008. But Mr. Nolan, who goes by Jonah, and Ms. Joy werent interested in taking on big television projects in 2013, when Mr. Abrams proposed reimagining it as a cable drama. Mr. Nolan, who had worked on films like Interstellar, The Dark Knight Rises and Memento with his brother Christopher before creating the CBS series Person of Interest, hoped to direct feature films. Ms. Joy, who wrote for shows like Burn Notice and Pushing Daisies, was developing a movie version of Battlestar Galactica.

Ultimately, they were drawn in by the chance to explore issues surrounding artificial intelligence and the idea that humans are getting ever better at immersing themselves in their narrative fictions, Mr. Nolan said.

Photo Anthony Hopkins, left, and Jeffrey Wright in Westworld. Credit John P. Johnson/HBO

While the movie Westworld was a campy predecessor to the Terminator movies as well as Crichtons more successful Jurassic Park with Yul Brynners black-hatted gunfighter in the inexorable predator role later filled by terminators and velociraptors the series takes its cues from headier sci-fi like Blade Runner and Ex Machina. It flips the main perspective of Crichtons story, and thus viewers sympathies, from the human guests to the robot hosts. And it poses provocative questions about the depths to which humans will sink when there arent consequences.

In Westworld, generally its the people, not the robots, who are the monsters; an early scene finds an Old West bro shooting an android cowboy in the back of the head for sport and exclaiming, Now thats a [expletive] vacation! In the most explicit inversion of the source material, Brynners mechanical outlaw is now a veteran Westworld tourist with a taste for cruelty and a mysterious agenda. He is played by Ed Harris in his first substantial series television role.

It was Jonah and Lisas commitment and passion for their idea that kind of sold me on it, he said. Theyre using the future of artificial intelligence to explore the nature of what makes us who we are.

Other actors were drawn by expansive roles I got be to a cowboy and a robot at the same time! Ms. Wood recalled with glee that gave primacy to characters most westerns leave on the margins, like the madam or the frontier girl next door.

If this wasnt an empowering role for women, it was going to be a major problem, Ms. Newton said. Because Im n**e for so much of the film.

Ah yes, the nudity. As suggested by the trailers, it is abundant, and it became a flash point during the production when a Westworld casting notice informed would-be extras that they may be required to perform genital-to-genital touching or pose on all fours while others who are fully n**e ride on your back, among other indignities. HBO disavowed the notice, saying it was never requested by the producers. (SAG-Aftra, the actors guild, protested at the time, but a spokeswoman confirmed that it received no complaints from members about the shoot.)

Photo James Marsden and Evan Rachel Wood in Westworld. Credit John P. Johnson/HBO

In general, the nudity is more clinical than titillating, mostly relegated to the gloomy laboratories as well as the trailers. The s*x and violence is easy to market, but its not the stuff thats very interesting, Mr. Abrams said.

Given the uproar over sexual violence on HBO shows like Game of Thrones, the most controversial scene in the pilot is likely to be an implied rape that happens offscreen. But those involved with Westworld defend it as a key, and non-gratuitous, part of the narrative. The cost of such actions is something these guys take incredibly seriously, Ms. Newton said.

Ms. Joy and Mr. Nolan met at the premiere for Memento, the 2001 indie thriller Christopher Nolan wrote and directed based on Jonahs short story. Though they consulted on each others work for years, Mr. Nolan and Ms. Joy had never officially worked together before Westworld, the development of which happened to coincide with another collaboration: their first child. (Theyre currently expecting their second.)

They have sketched out several seasons worth of story, but HBO has committed only to the one. Coming off of Vinyl, I think the one thing were going to do is take our time in making a decision about renewing Westworld, Mr. Bloys said.

That means it will be some time before anyone knows whether the show can in fact be the networks next flagship series, even as everyone involved swats away the inevitable Game of Thrones comparisons. But HBO executives do want enough viewers, positive reviews and cultural buzz for Westworld to justify a price tag that, while they wont divulge it, cant be cheap, considering the decorated cast and breathtaking scope on display.

Is it the next big HBO thing? I dont think it benefits any show to work under those expectations, Mr. Bloys said. Its getting into really interesting themes that are relevant today, so hopefully it catches on.

Mr. Nolan added: We have a dark, strange, hopefully compelling story were telling here. You never know what people are going to make of it until they do, but were incredibly excited to put it in front of an audience.

Correction: September 30, 2016

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of a film Jonathan Nolan worked on with his brother Christopher Nolan. It is The Dark Knight Rises, not The Dark Knight Returns.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/arts/television/is-the-ambitious-westworld-hbos-next-big-hit.html