Pushing Daisies and Hannibal
creator Bryan Fuller is stepping down as showrunner on CBS' Star Trek Discovery
television series.
According to Variety, executive
producers Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, who worked with Fuller on Pushing
Daisies, have replaced the now former showrunner, who despite stepping down
from his position is still a creative executive producer, meaning he will still
be involved in "breaking down" stories for the highly anticipated
series, which will continue to follow his vision.
Furthermore, writer/director
Akiva Goldsman ("A Beautiful Mind") has joined Discovery in a "top
creative role" in order to support Berg and Harberts, Fuller, and fellow
executive producer Alex Kurtzman.
According to sources, a rift
was starting to show between CBS and Fuller over the lack of progress on the
show, due to Fuller's other projects, namely Starz's upcoming adaptation of
Neil Gaiman's American Gods of which he is a co-showrunner, and Amazing
Stories, which he is helping develop over at NBC.
Fuller has already penned the
first couple of episodes of Discovery, as well as the broader story arc and mythology,
however since he is juggling so many projects at once, CBS opted to replace him
and not run the risk of having its 9-million per episode series miss its
premiere date yet again. The network was originally planning to premiere
Discovery in January, but in order to give the writers time and guarantee that
there was enough time in the production for the visual effects, they decided it
was safer to just have the series premiere in May instead.
"We
are extremely happy with the creative direction of ‘Star Trek:
Discovery’ and the strong foundation that Bryan Fuller has helped us
create for the series," said CBS Television Studios in a statement. "Due
to Bryan’s other projects, he is no longer able to oversee the day-to-day of
‘Star Trek,’ but he remains an executive producer, and will continue to map out
the story arc for the entire season…Bryan is a brilliant creative talent
and passionate ‘Star Trek’ fan who has helped
us chart an exciting course for the series. We are all committed to seeing
this vision through and look forward to premiering ‘Star Trek:
Discovery’ this coming May 2017."
Besides
Fuller's multiple spinning plates, sources also claim that although most of the
roles have been cast, the network was concern over the lead character, who
Fuller described as a female lieutenant commander, has yet to be cast.
Fuller
was mostly was well received by fans of the franchise, given his background as a
writer on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Star Trek Discovery goes into
production next month in Toronto for a May premiere on CBS before moving to the
network's SVOD service CBS All Access.
Source - Variety
Have they even cast anyone for the main roles?
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