Genre-Bending Series Sugar Heads To Apple TV+, Has The Good Taste To Cast Colin Farrell
Apple TV+ has won a bidding war for "Sugar," a new series starring Colin Farrell. Netflix was also vying for the series, which Deadline bills as a genre-bender and describes as "an LA-set contemporary take on the private detective story."
Beyond that, not much is known of the plot at this point, but "Sugar" hails from creator Mark Protosevich, who wrote "The Cell," "Poseidon," and Spike Lee's "Oldboy" remake, and who co-wrote "I Am Legend." He also received a story credit on "Thor," and IMDb still has him attached to an adaptation of the comic "Freakshow." However, that project was first announced over a decade ago and it's not clear if it's still actively in development.
Simon Kinberg, who was long associated with the "X-Men" franchise and directed "Dark Phoenix," is executive producing "Sugar" with Audrey Chon of Genre Films. This will continue Kinberg's relationship with Apple TV+, which just renewed his sci-fi drama, "Invasion," for a second season.
Farrell has been bouncing around with a few different streaming projects as of late. This year, he starred in "The North Water" on AMC+, and he's also got a series in development at HBO Max that will function as a spin-off of next year's "The Batman" and focus on his character, the Penguin, and his rise to power in Gotham City.
The Farrell-ssance Continues
I was a fan of the "The Cell," Protosevich's first feature film credit, back in the day, but it's been years since I watched that movie and I'm not sure if it would hold up. It was a visually inventive, post-"Matrix" thriller that saw Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn venture into the mind of a serial killer, played by Vincent D'Onofrio. Yet it received mixed reviews at the time and that's been the case with most of Protosevich's produced scripts.
What has me more intrigued about "Sugar" is its status as a Colin Farrell TV project. I thought Farrell gave a career-best performance in "The North Water," and now he's following that up with another transformative role as the Penguin. Farrell also starred in "True Detective" season 2, and though it was not well-received compared to the first season, it feels like he is doing some of the most interesting work of his career right now. In the 2010s, "True Detective" helped Matthew McConaughey undergo a career resurgence; the internet dubbed it the McConaissance and no one has ever looked back. Is it too early to declare the Farrell-ssance?
With so little known about "Sugar," it's not quite clear what its genre-bending elements will be beyond it being an L.A.-set private detective story. But if there's sci-fi involved, let's just hope it turns out better than the "Total Recall" remake that Farrell starred in back in 2012.