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HBO won the bidding war for J.J. Abrams’ new sci-fi series, Demimonde

HBO won the bidding war for J.J. Abrams’ new sci-fi series, Demimonde

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It’s the first time Abrams has written for television since 2008

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Build Presents JJ Abrams, Ashley Bryant & Alex Mandell Discussing 'The Play That Goes Wrong'
Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

A couple of weeks ago, word broke that Apple and HBO were bidding for the rights to a new show from Lost creator and The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams. HBO won the bid, ordering a straight-to-series order for the show, titled Demimonde.

Abrams already has a relationship with HBO, as an executive producer for the network’s Westworld. But Demimonde will mark his first return to television writing since 2008’s Fringe. In the series, a scientist falls into a coma after an accident. Looking through her experiments, her daughter is transported to another world. Her father follows, and they discover a “battle against a monstrous, oppressive force.”

The show is joining Abrams’ already-hefty workload. Last fall, he took over directing duties for Star Wars: Episode IX after Colin Trevorrow left the project. He’s also producing Hulu’s Stephen King-inspired series Castle Rock, the upcoming season of Westworld, and Quentin Tarantino’s proposed Star Trek film, among many other rumored and in-progress projects.

Before he directed big-budget blockbusters like 2009’s Star Trek and 2015’s The Force Awakens, Abrams was known for his work on shows such as Alias, Lost, and Fringe, each of which were loaded down with fantastical technologies and mysteries. Demimonde sounds as though it’ll fit in that category, as well as in the long literary tradition of fantasy stories about people from our world drawn into epic otherworldly conflicts. With Game of Thrones ending in 2019, HBO will be looking to fill a considerable hole in its “fantasy epic” roster, at least until one of its numerous spinoff shows hits, and Abrams’ latest could be designed to appeal to the same audience.