{"id":273811,"date":"2026-01-31T13:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/273811\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:55:12","slug":"upgrade-tv-series-wouldve-been-like-clockwork-orange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/273811\/","title":{"rendered":"Upgrade TV Series Would’ve Been Like Clockwork Orange"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blumhouse has been responsible for some of the biggest horror films of the past 15 years. There\u2019s been no slowing down in this regard, which has led to a natural temptation to transform compelling ideas into enduring franchises. This has proven to be incredibly successful for franchises like Paranormal Activity<\/a>, The Purge, and Insidious, while other titles like M3gan and Sinister have buckled under the pressure.<\/p>\n

Leigh Whannell cut his teeth on Saw alongside James Wan before taking greater ownership of the Insidious franchise and becoming an accomplished director in his own right. Blumhouse\u2019s The Invisible Man helped elevate Whannell\u2019s filmmaking credibility, but this modern update to the Universal Monster classic wouldn\u2019t have been possible without his previous work on Upgrade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Upgrade is a stunning blend of sci-fi, horror, and action that involves an experimental chip that grants its user superhuman abilities and intuition, which turns them into the ultimate weapon. It tells a complete story, but it\u2019s set in a rich world that\u2019s primed for additional stories. The film wasn\u2019t developed with franchise potential in mind, but it suddenly made a lot of sense to pursue a sequel. These plans eventually shifted into a TV series, which also meshed with Blumhouse\u2019s evolving sensibilities. Blumhouse had found success with a Purge TV series \u2013 and now The Creep Tapes \u2013 and so an Upgrade series<\/a> felt like the film\u2019s natural evolution.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Whannell confirmed<\/a> that future Upgrade projects were no longer being pursued and that he\u2019s comfortable viewing his film as a singular cult classic. Details on the project\u2019s dissolution were never firmly outlined, and much of the series\u2019 production was left in mystery. However, the circumstances behind Upgrade\u2019s cancellation have now become a little clearer after speaking with producer Tim Walsh, who was acting as the series\u2019 writer, showrunner, and executive producer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cLeigh and I sold that to Peacock back in 2019,\u201d recalls Walsh. \u201cI think I started my writer\u2019s room for Upgrade on the day the world shut down from the pandemic.\u201d Walsh, who is currently executive producer on MGM+\u2019s The Hillsider Strangler <\/a>docu-series, outlines how shifting leadership and growing COVID-19 concerns were the biggest hurdles Upgrade faced. \u201cWe had the writer\u2019s room. We wrote the scripts. But, as often happens in this business, somebody up top at Peacock got fired, and a new person came in, thought they knew everything, and dropped that project. It never got picked up later because it was a tumultuous time in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whannell had previously teased how Upgrade\u2019s series would look at an improved version of the STEM chip as well as a new host, rather than following Logan Marshall-Green\u2019s Grey Trace from the film. Walsh adds further context to this setup and explains that the series\u2019 would have been a considerably more psychological affair than the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole series was about criminals and the STEM chip being put into them to reform them. It was like A Clockwork Orange, you know, but with STEM being put in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes a lot of sense for an Upgrade series to dig even further into morality, especially with a cast of characters who begin at the despicable side of the spectrum. It\u2019s a rewarding angle for storytelling and character development, albeit one that proved to be another obstacle in Upgrade\u2019s development. \u201cIt was a series about four anti-heroes \u2013 four criminals \u2013 at a time when it was not popular to tell stories about criminals, cops, and all of that stuff,\u201d explains Walsh. \u201cSo, my version died.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate that bad timing got in the way of what could have been a seriously exciting evolution of an underrated Blumhouse film. \u201cI\u2019m sure they have tried with other writers,\u201d admits Walsh. \u201cI don\u2019t know where it\u2019s landed or why it hasn\u2019t landed, but man, I love Leigh Whannell.\u201d Nevertheless, Walsh remains optimistic about the future and that they\u2019ll get the chance to collaborate again. \u201cHe and I have remained friends, and it was a blast to work on that. It still hurts to this day that it didn\u2019t go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Walsh laments the loss of Upgrade, and his unique angle feels like it would have been something special. That being said, it\u2019s not hard to imagine bigger Blumhouse franchises like Paranormal Activity and even Saw working in more of an episodic anthology context. James Wan and Leigh Whannell have recently returned to steer Saw\u2019s future<\/a> for Blumhouse. Wan will be directing the next entry in the series, which will presumably be written by Wan and Whannell.<\/p>\n

Saw\u2019s cinematic future remains bright. However, Whannell and Walsh could channel the same creative energy that was present for the Upgrade series into a Saw show. Walsh\u2019s background on gritty crime procedurals like Chicago P.D. and Law & Order: Organized Crime would be perfect for something like Saw that operates as their heightened extreme.<\/p>\n

The additional details on why Upgrade failed to materialize are disappointing, if not illuminating. If nothing else, Blumhouse hopefully won\u2019t fully retreat from television and continue to experiment with the medium.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blumhouse has been responsible for some of the biggest horror films of the past 15 years. There\u2019s been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[56740,93,61,60,40799,133508,282,13646],"class_list":["post-273811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-blumhouse","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leigh-whannell","tag-tim-walsh","tag-tv","tag-upgrade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}