Deadline is reporting that production has stopped on David Fincher’s HBO comedy series Videosynchrazy (formerly known as Living On Video). While some cast members were told that production is permanently shut down, other sources are saying it’s just a break. Apparently HBO saw some complete episodes and spit out their proverbial coffee, so Fincher asked the network if he could reassess the show’s creative direction, possibly revising scripts written by Rich Wilkes (Airheads, xXx, The Jerky Boys) and Bob Stephenson. Meanwhile, HBO can spend this time giving serious thought as to why they went to the trouble of retaining Fincher’s expertise, only to allow him to create a half-hour comedy series “in the vein of Entourage.”
Despite that confidence-wavering comparison, Videosyncrazy has the benefit of drawing upon Fincher’s early career working in the music video industry. The show is (or was, up until this pause) centered on Robby (Charlie Rowe), an enthusiastic but naive college dropout who moves to Hollywood with dreams of directing a sprawling sci-fi feature film. As with most tinseltown pilgrims, Robby’s dreams are expeditiously crushed, and he becomes a production assistant on music videos. The career setback gives Robby a front row seat to the excesses of the ’80s music scene, when rockers chased big dreams and were fueled by big hair, big leather jackets, and big piles of cocaine. Because this is a comedy, there’s probably little chance that Robby’s anemic sense of masculinity will drive him into an insomniac fugue state or lead him to form an underground pugilism league. Then again, maybe he will—that setup already sounds funnier than Arli$$.
The status of Videosyncrazy should have no impact on Fincher’s other HBO series, Utopia. That series is not the ‘50s crime drama Fincher was planning with James Ellroy, but a science-fiction collaboration with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn about a graphic novel that “predicts major disasters”—disasters which may wind up including Fincher-directed comedies in the vein of Entourage.