Peacock parts ways with its Field Of Dreams series
Mike Schur's reboot is now reportedly being shopped to other networks
Field Of Dreams has been put out to pasture over at Peacock, according to a new Deadline report. The series (based on the 1989 film starring Kevin Costner and Ray Liotta) was given a straight-to-series order in August of last year, but was dropped “abruptly” from the streamer’s roster. Universal TV is reportedly now shopping the show to other networks.
The series “was set to reimagine the mixture of family, baseball, Iowa and magic that made the movie so enduring and beloved,” per Deadline. At the time of this sudden breakup, casting was in process and seven hour-long scripts were completed. The series was reportedly “a month out from production” with filming slated to take place in Iowa, Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis.
The project is helmed by Mike Schur, who is a noted baseball fan and has a pretty good track record over at Peacock and NBCUniversal (Rutherford Falls, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Office, Parks & Recreation…). He also has a good track record with comedies that deal with the afterlife (The Good Place). In other words, he’s pretty much the perfect person for the job.
Field Of Dreams itself was batting a thousand when the series was first picked up: the MLB’s “Field Of Dreams” White Sox/Yankees game did gangbusters in the ratings and actually led to a spike in DVD sales for the movie. No wonder, then, that Peacock was eager to capitalize on the film’s long-lasting popularity.
All in all, it’s unclear why the streamer lost enthusiasm for the project. Prime Video is set to release its own baseball movie reboot series (A League Of Their Own) on August 12–the day after this year’s MLB Field Of Dreams game. So there is a reboot striking while the iron is hot, it’s just the wrong reboot. We’ll see if some other network decides to put Field Of Dreams on its roster.