Bret Easton Ellis Says ‘The Shards' No Longer at HBO

Bret Easton Ellis and Kristoffer Borgli (“Dream Scenario”) were set to direct the highly anticipated HBO adaptation of "The Shards." It’s sadly no longer happening.

HBO’s "The Shards,” which was in full blown pre-production mode, was written by Ellis, and based on his own novel. The author (and filmmaker) is now talking about the “frustrating” experience he had working on the show with Warner Bros, and that he feels like he wasted an entire year for nothing:

We were invested in The Shards at HBO, from January to September, until we parted ways, and it became an extremely frustrating experience, and what we thought we were able to do we were told that we can’t. The show that we sold, through whatever machinations were going through at Warners Bros, was sadly not going to be that show anymore.

The book is a fictionalized memoir of Ellis' final year of high school in 1981 Los Angeles. Jacob Elordi was rumored to star, but there never was any confirmation about his casting. Ellis’ fallout with HBO seems to have to do with creative differences, and the direction of the show steering into a whole other direction, with multiple new scripts happening without Ellis’ approval:

I didn’t just want to get the thing made, I also wanted it to be good. I wanted it to be what my version of good was. This had all been promised to me when we made the deal, and it was just not happening. I really felt like eight months of the year had been wasted. I was disappointed and bitter. I said never again. I’m never going to do this again.

The idea was for “The Shards” to have three seasons of ten episodes each. Ellis had mentioned that there would be subplots in the series that weren’t in the original novel. The plan now is to shop it around to other networks although Ellis does add that he would not want to be as involved creatively if that does happen.