Bad news for die-hard fans of The Leisure Class, Feast, or The Battle For Shaker Heights: HBO has announced that it’s officially un-reviving Project Greenlight. The unscripted docu-series—originally created by unshakeable movie bros Matt Damon and Ben Affleck way back in 2001, and brought back last year after a decade off the air—will not be returning for another season.
In a statement, HBO wrote,“When we picked up a new season in 2014, we imagined a one season revival and decided in early 2016 another season did not make sense for us.” (The network also expressed its pride in the show, and resisted the urge to type out a sigh of relief at no longer being contractually forced to air the meticulously documented student films it periodically put out.)
The series presented budding directors with the chance to make an actual, albeit low-budget, studio movie, with all the attendant pressures contained within. (It also offered the occasional chance to get turned into a reality TV scapegoat, as happened at least in part to the most recent season’s director, would-be artistic perfectionist Jason Mann.) At its best, Project Greenlight was an uncompromising look at how damn hard it is to make a movie; at its worst, it was yet another reality TV soap opera about big personalities clashing against each other in a soundbite-friendly fashion. And now it’s gone, at least until HBO decides to dust it off again to document the exciting, potentially post-Trump world of 2025.