Monday, October 12, 2020

A WORD FROM THE CREATORS

 At a recent virtual panel at NY Comic Con, LOST showrunner continued his advocacy for LOST. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said there no plans for a reboot or spinoff of the series which had its 15th anniversary of its premiere. However, they would support another show in the LOST "universe" if someone had a great idea to convince Disney/ABC to do it.

 Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were asked what they both think about any possible reboot or spinoff. 

"It would not be a good idea for us to go back," Cuse said. "This comes up all the time and, I think, Damon and I have been very consistent and forthright on this topic. We told the story that we wanted to tell."

Over six seasons, LOST followed a group of survivors of Oceanic flight 815 who crash landed on an island. As they tried to go back home (and then get back to the island), it was consistently a top-rated show on ABC.

To this day fans love re-watching and discussing the series' few unsolved mysteries — including one Cuse and Lindelof said they'll never answer about the identity of the people on the Season 5 outrigger.

While they have no interest in rebooting "Lost" or exploring any spinoffs, Lindelof said he would be supportive of anyone who pitched a good idea. 

"If somebody else comes along who has a great idea to do something set in the 'LOST' universe and sells that to The Walt Disney Company, they will have our blessings to do that," Cuse said. "We see no reason to do it. It doesn't feel like there's anything that we have left to say that's worth saying. We did it."

Lindelof said Disney has never come to him with any other show pitches since the show wrapped up in 2010.

"For the three final seasons of the show — four, five, and six — we put so much emotional energy into ending this show," Lindelof added of why they have no need to revisit this world. 

After 15 years, the show continues to be a iconic series from the past. To re-create a show with that much detail and location shooting would cost double or triple the old budget (which was already high for its time). Another re-boot problem would be that it was a serial show, where each episode was linked to the next. This made it impossible for secondary revenue like television syndication, which demands intact single episodes of shows (in case people cannot watch everyone in a row).

The LOST universe itself is a cryptic concept. Fans still debate whether it was science fiction or fantasy. Fans still debate whether it was real, imaginary or a hybrid psychotic event(s). For all its flaws, it would be very difficult for another producer to re-create the magic of the Island and its mysteries.