HBO not moving forward with ‘Codes of Conduct’ from ‘12 Years A Slave’ director Steve McQueen

Despite all the love for Game of Thrones, HBO is in serious trouble and has continued to pass on promising projects from exciting filmmakers. The latest dead-before-it-arrived project is Codes of Conduct, a series from 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen.

The fate of the project was buried in a The Hollywood Reporter story about the general state of HBO. The network has been struggling in recent years to launch a new series other than Game of Thrones and, although its projects receive awards, they don’t often attract viewers.

THR reports that the McQueen limited series was among the projects shut down, despite already being in early production. The network told the site that it might be revived, though.

“We make no apologies for sticking by a project we believe has the potential to be great,” programming president Michael Lombardo told THR. “Unfortunately, we also at times find ourselves in the position of deciding not to move forward with others. That is never fun, but that is our business.”

Codes of Conduct was set to star Devon Terrell, Helena Bonham Carter, Rebecca Hall and Paul Dano. The script, by McQueen and Matthew Michael Carnahan, centers on a young African American man who finds a spot in New York society while running from his past.

As Collider notes, McQueen was set to direct all six episodes. The British filmmaker has made three films--Hunger, Shame and 12 Years A Slave--and won an Oscar as a co-producer on 12 Years.

It’s not clear why HBO would have passed on this, but the network is clearly trying to be more picky when it comes to expensive projects after what happened with Westworld, Lewis and Clark and David Fincher’s projects.

The network also saw Vinyl, a $100 million pilot co-created by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, only attract 1.1 million viewers over three days. Even though the show didn’t do so well, it has already been renewed.

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