Hulu’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is officially dead in the water

I’m not sure if we need to panic, but the long-gestating Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV series is dead.

So long and thanks for all the fish, indeed.

You might recall that back in 2020, word was that a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series was getting ready for production, and now, six years later, we finally have an update. And it’s not good news. At all.

In 202o, my excited hands typed out: Production is reportedly set to start this summer in Elstree Studios, here in the UK, with the series set to debut sometime in 2021.

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More details drop on Hulu’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy TV series

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Headhunters and The Imitation Game’s Morten Tyldum will direct and, most exciting of all, this is not planned as a limited series, so it won’t simply adapt the first book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, but could go on to adapt The Restaurant At The End of the Universe, Life The Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless. Which would be superbly exciting.

So, by that rationale, we could have been in the show’s fifth season by now, and you may have noticed that we are not because Hulu has officially pulled the plug on the series.

Speaking briefly about the project, Lost and Locke & Key’s Carlton Cuse, who was to be showrunner, said that he’s “not working on that any longer.”

Explaining that he, the writers’ room, along with IT: Welcome to Derry co-showrunner Jason Fuchs, just couldn’t get the story cracked: “That happens [sometimes when] you work on things. It was a worthwhile shot to take, because I love that story so much. Even though it didn’t come to fruition, it was really fun to get to think about it a lot, and to reabsorb myself in that story and that world, because it was so brilliant.”

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was written by the genius Douglas Adams as a BBC Radio 4 series in the late 1970s, and later developed into a BBC TV series. It then became a very successful series of books, before going on to be a game, comic series, movie and, most recently, a stage show. (I’ve seen it… it had some good merch) It’s one of the most loved – and greatest sci-fi stories ever told, with great characters, incredibly complex themes and ideas, and it also uproariously funny.

Also, one of the best things is that every incarnation of the story is different but also remains true to Adams’ vision for the story of Earth man Arthur Dent, who learns one day that his best friend, Ford Prefect, is an alien from Betelgeuse. It also happens to be the same day his entire planet is wiped out (hyperspace bypasses must be built). Rescued by Ford, Arthur is thrown into an adventure through space and time, all the time aided by the universe’s greatest book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

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It’s one of my favourite stories and I’ve loved all the incarnations of the story, so I was excited to see what this new take would look like. Seems like I might have to keep waiting…

Personally, I think The Hitchhiker’s Guide needs to be handled by a British team; the adventure is as British as Monty Python or Doctor Who, preferably by someone like Apple TV, who we know will treat the material properly and with the reverence it deserves.

PS Matthew Rhys, fresh off Widow’s Bay, would make a wonderful Arthur Dent. Just sayin’.

Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all.

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Source: Screenrant