After four seasons of wrestling with artificial intelligence, free will, and self-awareness, Westworld is shutting its doors for good. It’s a bit of a shocking move for what was once one of their biggest series, but HBO announced today that they have cancelled Westworld after four seasons.
The fourth season of Westworld wrapped up earlier this summer, but creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were hoping for one more season to wrap up the story. “We always planned for a fifth and final season,” Nolan told THR last month. “We are still in conversations with the network. We very much hope to make them.” Joy added, “Jonah and I have always had an ending in mind that we hope to reach. We have not quite reached it yet.” The series wasn’t exactly cheap to produce, and ratings had dropped off over the last two seasons, so this choice isn’t completely unexpected, but it’s still a shame that Nolan and Joy won’t get to wrap up the series properly. With just one more season planned, you’d think HBO would have let them move ahead with it, even if it wound up being a shorter run of episodes. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has been engaged in some fairly aggressive cost-cutting measures, but insiders told THR that this wasn’t a factor in the choice to cancel the series.
In a statement, HBO said: “Over the past four seasons, Lisa and Jonah have taken viewers on a mind-bending odyssey, raising the bar at every step. We are tremendously grateful to them, along with their immensely talented cast, producers and crew, and all of our partners at Kilter Films, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television. It’s been a thrill to join them on this journey.” Kilter Films added: “Making Westworld has been one of the highlights of our careers. We are deeply grateful to our extraordinary cast and crew for creating these indelible characters and brilliant worlds. We’ve been privileged to tell these stories about the future of consciousness – both human and beyond – in the brief window of time before our AI overlords forbid us from doing so.“
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