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Leigh Whannell has a further “UPGRADE” coming to television

Thursday, May 28, 2020 | News

By MICHAEL GINGOLD

The sci-fi shocker is now being developed as an ongoing series, with its creator on board.

Blumhouse Television has announced that they are teaming with UCP on an UPGRADE show based on the 2018 feature. The film’s writer/director Leigh Whannell, who scored earlier this year with THE INVISIBLE MAN, returns as co-creator and executive producer along with showrunner Tim Walsh, and will direct as well. Whannell and Walsh are also heading up a writers’ room for the first season, joined by Krystal Ziv Houghton and James Roland, who ran the second season of the USA Network’s televersion of THE PURGE. In the UPGRADE feature, Logan Marshall-Green stars as a man paralyzed by a violent attack that kills his wife, and is implanted with an experimental AI computer chip called STEM that gives him superhuman abilities, which he uses to exact revenge. According to the PR, the UPGRADE series “picks up a few years after the events of the film and broadens the universe with an evolved version of STEM and a new host–imagining a world in which the government repurposes STEM to help curb criminal activity.” Jason Blum and Automatik’s Brian Kavanaugh-Jones are executive producers on the show as well.

Michael Gingold
Michael Gingold (RUE MORGUE's Head Writer) has been covering the world of horror cinema for over three decades, and in addition to his work for RUE MORGUE, he has been a longtime writer and editor for FANGORIA magazine and its website. He has also written for BIRTH.MOVIES.DEATH, SCREAM, IndieWire.com, TIME OUT, DELIRIUM, MOVIEMAKER and others. He is the author of the AD NAUSEAM books (1984 Publishing) and THE FRIGHTFEST GUIDE TO MONSTER MOVIES (FAB Press), and he has contributed documentaries, featurettes and liner notes to numerous Blu-rays, including the award-winning feature-length doc TWISTED TALE: THE UNMAKING OF "SPOOKIES" (Vinegar Syndrome).