The Wire‘s David Simon says he can no longer get a show made, but also reveals details of new projects he would be keen to work on.
He said he “can’t get anything made” at the moment, explaining that he has been struggling to land a show at HBO.
Speaking to The Observer, the screenwriter and producer opened up about the struggle to find a home for shows and projects he would like to make.
“I’ll never write anything that’s going to be a franchise,” Simon told the publication. “I was having lunch with the boss there and I said: ‘You know, I’m not sure you guys are the home for what I do any more. You’re not going to take the David Simon Harry Potter miniseries about a bureaucratic Hogwarts that can’t function.’”
He later said that there are more shows and projects he hopes to be able to work on, including a musical using music by The Pogues. He said: “You know, I’m 64. I had a good 25-year run. But on my shelf, there is [still] a series about the history of the CIA and American foreign policy since the second world war.
“There’s a miniseries about the first Muslim FBI agent and how he got run out of the bureau. There’s another piece [about] child protective services and the family courts. There’s a punk musical using the music of the Pogues.”
Back in 2021, Simon penned a tribute in an open essay to the show’s late actor Michael K Williams. Simon took to Twitter to post a tribute in the New York Times after the actor was found dead in his home in Brooklyn, New York. He was 54.
“A short remembrance for a talent, a genuine collaborator and a true friend. What I hope never gets lost is the awareness that Mike genuinely wanted his work to matter; not for fame or reward, but for leaving us all better humans in its wake,” The Wire creator wrote in the post.
The essay centres around a conversation Williams had about his character Omar Little, and the HBO series itself, with the writers prior to the acclaimed show’s second season, which the actor felt was straying fundamentally from the acclaimed first season.
Also in 2021, The Wire was named the greatest TV series of the 21st century in a poll. The critically acclaimed drama ranked first in a BBC list ranking the best shows of the last 21 years, based on an aggregate poll of TV critics.
Reacting to the win, The Wire creator David Simon said: “I’m glad the show has a shelf life. We weren’t interested in whether characters were good or bad. The writers had in their heads the idea, ‘If a society is going to have a law enforcement arm, what’s the job of that institution? What are the police doing?’
“If you write a show like that, it will have a shelf life for as long as those systems are in play.”