HBO once had the chance to air some of todays biggest TV shows but unfortunately, for HBO they passed on the projects.
HBO may not be struggling to find new TV series nowadays with Game of Thrones, True Detective, and VEEP. But, at one point in time, HBO was looking around for their next big TV series. Here are five super popular shows that HBO had the chance to pick up, but declined to filmed.
The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones are two of the biggest shows on TV, and at one point in time HBO nearly had both of them. Producer Gale Anne Hurd, originally approached NBC, an executive for which replied, “This is awesome. I really love this. Does it have to have zombies in it,” and HBO. Oddly, they said no because of the show's extreme violence.
Hurd wasn't willing to compromise when it came to Kirkman's vision. Which is why, when NBC and HBO both said that they'd be willing to commit to a The Walking Dead television series if the production team significantly toned down the graphic novels' violence and gore, Gale said, “No, thank you,” and began shopping the show around to other networks. (Via)
Before Sons of Anarchy was on FX, it was almost HBO's Forever Sam Crow. According to Variety, “[Creator Kurt] Sutter and [producers] Art and John Linson originally pitched Forever Sam Crow to HBO but eventually struck a deal with FX.”
3. Breaking Bad
The first season of Breaking Bad started two months after The Wire aired their last episode. Things worked out pretty well for AMC but, Vince Gilligan reported that the meeting with HBO was the “Worst meeting I ever had.”
“The trouble with Hollywood — movies and TV — is people will leave you dangling on the end of a meat hook for days or weeks or months on end. That happened at HBO,” said Gilligan. “Like the worst meeting I ever had vs. the TNT meeting…and it was only like a day apart…The woman we're pitching to could not have been less interested — not even in my story, but about whether I actually lived or died. My agents could never even get her on the phone afterward to even say no.” (Via)
4. Mad Men
HBO also had the opportunity to film the AMC series, Mad Men but, things got messed up after executive producer David Chase could not make up his mind to direct the pilot or not.
Weiner and Chase both told me that at one point HBO indicated it would make Mad Men on the condition that Chase be an executive producer, and Chase said he had further discussion with Weiner about directing the pilot, but despite being “very tempted” by directing, he said no to both propositions, wanting to move away from weekly television. Still, Chase championed the script, and Weiner said he never really got a straight explanation from the network for its pass, which still seems to irk him. “I would go through David Chase's garbage if I was at HBO, trying to find more of what he does. But they were not like that.” (Via)
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