We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. Jennifer Connelly, Mike O'Malley, and Daveed Diggs (Photo Credit: Justina Mintz) Korean director Bong Joon-Ho is ascending his throne as one of the most vital and important filmmakers in the world. His multiple Oscar wins for last year’s Parasite reinforced what fans have always known—he’s a master of creating deep, intelligent metaphors for modern society within gripping genre films. Prior to Parasite, his biggest crossover success came with 2013’s Snowpiercer, which brought in Western actors like Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton to tell the tale of a train rocketing through a frozen post-apocalyptic landscape and the class struggle that erupts when the passengers in the back realize the guards keeping them there have no bullets in their guns. Like most of Bong’s films, it was slated for a limited arthouse release, but rapturous critical response led to expanded showings and more public attention. It wasn’t long before Hollywood started paying attention. In most cases, a successful foreign film would just see a remake, but Snowpiercer was already mostly in English, so Marty Adelstein's Tomorrow Studios came up with a different idea in 2015: a TV series.Small ScreenWriter Josh Friedman would be brought on to pen a pilot script for the studio, which had found success with MTV’s Teen Wolf and other shows. After a year, cable network TNT snapped it up and ordered a pilot. And that’s when things started to get weird.Initial reports from the production were positive. The show would be a prequel to the movie, exploring how conditions developed on the train before the revolt. Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly were tapped to star, and Doctor Strange’s Scott Derrickson was brought in to direct the first episode. Even before the pilot was shot, TNT decided to go whole hog and approved the entire series in January 2018.One thing was strange, though: nowhere in TNT’s press release about the series order was Friedman’s name mentioned. It soon came out that he’d been removed from the project and replaced by Graeme Manson of Orphan Black fame. This wasn’t Friedman’s first experience with development hell, though. He was also involved with comic book adaptation Locke & Key, which went to pilot at Fox before being turned down for a series and wound up at Netflix late last year. Most of the time, when something like this happens, the spurned creative doesn’t make much of a fuss and moves on to something else. But Snowpiercer… might be cursed.Bad BloodIn May 2018, Friedman went public with his experiences on a Twitter thread obviously directed at—but not naming—Manson.  In it, he wrote “If you're asked to rewrite someone or take over their show it seems like good sense and good karma to reach out to that person first and a) find out what the circumstances of their departure are and b) thank them for doing the work you'll be profiting from, you should buy that person a nice meal or a bottle of alcohol if they're up for it. Your money was earmarked for them at one time. And more than likely, what may be a good job for you was a passion project for them. Put another way: if you were to take over a show I'd originated and worked on for two years and didn't reach out to me before taking the job you're either an idiot, a coward, or a vichy motherf***er."Obviously Friedman’s departure from the show wasn’t a friendly one. But he wasn’t the only one pushing back at Manson’s tenure. Derrickson was called back in for reshoots after the pilot script was edited—not an uncommon thing for a show in development. But after seeing the changes that Manson made to the story, Derrickson refused to do the reshoots.  On Twitter, Derrickson called Friedman’s original pilot script “the best I’ve ever read,” and called the pilot he shot possibly his best work. In comparison, he said “The new showrunner has a radically different vision for the show. I am forgoing my option to direct the extreme reshoots.” The network brought in British TV veteran James Hawes as a producer and director, who finished the pilot. With a product that TNT was finally okay with, the show was set to debut in the 2019 summer season. But machinations behind the scenes at TNT’s corporate parent WarnerMedia would once more threaten to derail the show.We Know DramaTNT launched in October 1988 as a sister channel to Ted Turner’s TBS, and was intended to be a repository for classic films in the recently acquired MGM library. The channel soon began investing in original programming as well, cashing in on the pro wrestling boom of the late 1990s with Monday Nitro. In 2001, the network pivoted away from movies and towards second-run and original dramatic programming. It has never been thought of as a destination for prestige projects, but Snowpiercer was a big-budget grab at capturing a growing market.The world of a cable channel is an uncertain one in the streaming age, and in May 2019, Warner announced that TNT wasn’t going to be the home station for Snowpiercer at all. Instead, the show would premiere on TBS, which was undergoing its own shift. Previously serving as a home for comedy, the 2019 upfronts saw Warner announce that the network would also air a handful of dramatic series, with Snowpiercer the first. The show was also renewed for a second season before a single episode was aired. An announcement for Obliterated, from Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald, soon followed. (Credit: Justina Mintz) Later that year, Warner flip-flopped again, releasing a statement saying that the show would debut on TNT after all. Network president Kevin Reilly said in October “After further research and consideration we’ve decided to keep Snowpiercer on TNT. Now that we’ve seen this incredible post-apocalyptic sci-fi series in its entirety, and better understand the audience this show will appeal to, we’re confident it will perform strongest on TNT."The premiere was finally slated in May, but another potential iceberg loomed on the horizon: the launch of HBO Max, a new streaming service from Warner that will showcase programming from the premium cable network as well as other properties from across the conglomerate’s library. Many feel that Snowpiercer would have been a better fit there, but Warner is stubbornly sticking with TNT, at least for the first season. (Credit: Jesse Giddings) It remains to be seen whether all that time in the oven will make for a good series. Last week’s premiere didn’t wow many critics, but delivered a solid audience of 3.3 million viewers to TNT, making it the largest debut for the network since 2018. A second showing pulled in another million watchers. We’re suspicious of the changes made to adapt the story to serial drama—a serial killer plotline doesn’t really fill us with hope—but it’s too early to judge.Unfortunately, watching what of Snowpiercer made it to the screen just forces us to wonder what was in that original Friedman / Derrickson cut, which has been described as an almost totally different show. Maybe one or the other will go public once the train comes to its final stop.Stream episode one on TNT's website; new Snowpiercer episodes air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on TNT. Further Reading Video Streaming Service Reviews Video Streaming Service Best Picks

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