Gattaca Reboot Series Dead at Showtime

The upcoming Gattaca TV reboot has been dropped by cable network Showtime. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Showtime has officially passed on the upcoming TV adaptation of the classic ‘90s sci-fi flick Gattaca.

The show had been in the works since earlier this year, with Homeland creators Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa teaming up for the project along with Dallas Buyers Club scribe Craig Borent.

Sources at the time claimed Showtime considered this a significant project, with boss Chris McCarthy aiming to turn Gattaca into a franchise. However, the network is now said to be focussing on investing in intellectual property it owns rather than licensed content such as Gattaca. Other projects including the upcoming comedy Seasoned, as well as Split and Sweetness, were also dropped. Gattaca producers Sony Pictures Television will apparently shop the Gattaca series elsewhere.

Earlier this week, Showtime programming was folded into Paramount+ in an effort to provide the online streaming platform with additional content, an effort to compete with larger streamers such as Netflix and Max.

Since McCarthy took over Showtime last year, the network has reviewed its commitments and has passed on or canceled a number of projects including American Gigolo, Let the Right One In, The L Word: Generation Q, and Ripley. Showtime is now said to be expanding its existing shows and plans to turn the likes of Billions and Dexter into multi-series franchises.

As for Gattaca, the film starred Ethan Hawke as Vincent Freeman, a genetically natural man in a world where eugenics is common and genotype profiling is used to identify jobs and societal roles for individuals.

IGN’s Gattaca review gave it 7/10 and said: “Gattaca argues that the smallest parts of what makes us human are the very things that either fuel or inhibit our humanity. And while its questions may be better asked than answered, the film ultimately succeeds with its portrayal of a world where identity is currency, leaving it up to the viewer to determine how much a borrowed – or engineered – life is worth.”

Want to read more about upcoming sci-fi movies? Check out our first glimpse of Christopher Walken as Dune: Part Two’s Emperor and why Din Djarin was never going to be The Mandalorian’s Aragorn.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.