Director Amy Seimetz has left The Weeknd’s The Idol amid that “new creative direction”
The She Dies Tomorrow filmmaker was meant to direct each episode, so this seems like an important shift
Yesterday, we reported that HBO’s upcoming drama series The Idol, co-created by Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, Reza Fahim, and Euphoria’s Sam Levinson, was moving toward a “new creative direction” despite already wrapping production on several of its initial six episodes. We heard that the show would be “adjusting its cast and crew” to fit the new version of The Idol, but we didn’t hear any specifics beyond that… until today, when Deadline revealed that series director Amy Seimetz (director of the haunting and extremely metaphor-friendly She Dies Tomorrow) is one of the people who will be stepping down.
Deadline says HBO declined to comment, naturally, and there’s no word from Seimetz, but Levinson is reportedly going to take on “more of a role in directing the series” going forward (Levinson has directed some of Euphoria, in addition to Malcolm & Marie). Seimetz was supposed to direct every episode of the series, so losing her is notable and it seems to indicate that this “new creative direction” is either going to be very significant or is specifically divergent from whatever her version of the show was looking like.
The Idol, at least the original incarnation of it, was about an up-and-coming female pop singer (Lily-Rose Depp, as far as we know) who falls under the sway of a mysterious nightclub owner in Los Angeles (The Weeknd) who is actually a cult leader. The Weeknd is (as far as we know) still co-writing the series in addition to starring and executive producing, making this his second time writing for TV after that episode of American Dad! where he revealed that he’s a virgin with magic virgin powers. That probably won’t happen in The Idol, unless that’s the new direction they’re going in, which would be weird, and it would help us understand why people are leaving in the middle of this new direction.