I thought this was a no-brainer given DB Weiss and David Benioff’s exclusivity with Netflix, but apparently not. A couple of years ago the Game of Thrones duo stirred up controversy when they announced a new series, Confederate, which would take place in an alternate history where the Confederate states seceded and maintained slavery. The backlash was immediate, the show shelved, and that was pretty much it. Well, now it’s officially dead.
TVLine reports HBO boss Casey Bloys has confirmed Confederate is no longer in the works at the network. That effectively cuts all ties between the duo and HBO, because to the best of my knowledge they had nothing else in development there.
SO yeah, Confederate was quite a thing in 2017. Personally, I found the premise intriguing and didn’t buy into those who claimed it would present slavery in anything other than a negative light. They were probably aiming for something similar to The Man in the High Castle, which presents a world in which the Nazis are victorious in WWII. However, HBO should’ve known better than to have two prominent white guys like Benioff and Weiss, who didn’t deal with ethnicity too great in Game of Thrones, on a project this divisive. That was just a dumb move.
It’s always possible Benioff and Weiss pitch Confederate elsewhere, but I don’t know if they have the clout anymore. They were riding high a couple of years ago and could’ve gotten anything greenlit at the time. Now? Not so much.