After Chernobyl, It's Time for HBO Series About the Coronavirus
HBO in cooperation with Hyperobject Industries will create a series about a corporate race for a coronavirus vaccine. Adam McKay will be the main producer of the project.
HBO proved with Chernobyl that it is capable of grasping difficult historical events and transforming them into a cinematic, thought-provoking show. The next topic, which will be taken up by the American television network, will be much more fresh. The coronavirus pandemic is not yet over, and the first serious production will be made about it.
We don't know the title of the series yet, but the news website Deadline discovered that the whole thing will be based on Brendan Borrell's The First Shot. The book focuses primarily on the subject of COVID vaccine. However, it is not about examining its properties or how to obtain the cure, but a typically capitalist rat race to develop the cure as soon as possible. It is therefore necessary to prepare for a dynamic political drama with arrogant businessmen in the leading roles.
The whole project will be supervised by Adam McKay and his Hyperobject Industries, which has been working closely with HBO for some time. The series about Jeffrey Epstein and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team are already planned. The adaptation of The First Shot is another step towards McKay's market expansion. The producer also has a lot of directorial experience. He started with simple comedies with Will Ferrell like Step Brothers and The Other Guys, and then stormed into the Oscars with his insanely edited political films. We are talking about the popular Big Short and the unusual biography of Dick Cheney, titled Vice. Based on his output to date, one can be rather calm about the level of the series about the COVID vaccine.
It is also worth mentioning that McKay is currently working on an American film adaptation of Parasite, this year's Oscar winner for best film. The project also involves Boon Joon-ho, the original director and HBO GO platform. Let's just hope that the number of works planned by the producer will not affect their final quality.
