Bryan Singer Updates On His Twilight Zone Reboot

By David Wharton | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Serling

Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone is justifiably considered one of the landmark programs in all of television history, so it’s no wonder that Hollywood has repeatedly tried to recapture Serling’s lightning in a bottle and relaunch a successful new Twilight Zone. Many have tried over the years, ranging from the semi-successful (the mid ‘80s version) to the utterly forgettable (the 2002 UPN version). The latest reboot attempt has one big thing going for it: it’s the brainchild of director Bryan Singer.

The news of Singer’s Twilight Zone plans first broke last December, and it was instantly more intriguing than that other Twilight Zone project in the works, a standalone movie about time travel. Singer’s project is attempting to resurrect the Zone in more than just name, creating a new anthology sci-fi/fantasy series in keeping with Serling’s original. That’s a more difficult task than you might think: anthology shows aren’t exactly popular these days, and that’s because they’re a tricky beast to tame. Probably the closest anyone has come in recent years is FX’s American Horror Story, which changes setting, characters, and premise with each new season.

While Singer’s Twilight Zone is still a ways down the road, he did provide an update on the project while speaking to IGN.

You know it’s always a challenge with anthology television shows because you don’t have a standing cast, so you’re always recasting. And you’re always finding new locations and environments to serve the different stories. But I’m anxious to figure out the right way to do it because I love anthologies. I love anthology movies and anthology television shows. I’m very passionate about it and some of those stories I think are worth revisiting now. And there are ways that they can be treated now, they can be scarier than they were then and also they can be much more visual because we have more technology. Back then you were shooting on the back lot or out west and now you can pull off a lot more for television. So I’m really looking forward to getting into it. There’s writer that I just got involved in it. I don’t want to say who it is yet because we have to make a deal, but somebody I enjoy working with.

I’m seriously pulling for this project to come together, because a new Twilight Zone, if done right, could be amazing. I’m hoping that it follows in the original’s footsteps and enlists some of the most talented writers of science fiction and fantasy, as well as traditional TV writers.

Stay tuned to GFR for more as we learn it.