HBO is making a six-part miniseries about billionaire Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX. Shouldn’t be controversial at all.
Let it never be said that HBO doesn’t walk close to the edge. Variety reports that the network is making a six-part miniseries all about Tesla CEO and billionaire lightning rod Elon Musk.
Specially, the series will focus on Musk’s quest to privatize space travel with his company SpaceX. Based on the book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance, the series will follow Musk as he “handpicks a team of engineers to work on a remote Pacific Island where they build, and launch, the first SpaceX rocket into orbit,” climaxing with the launch of the Falcon 9 in May of this year.
That sounds interesting enough, although you have to wonder if the show will branch into other, more controversial parts of Musks’ life, like the time he called the California stay-at-home order “fascist” or when he got into trouble with his own board for making a weed joke about Tesla’s stock price and then seemed to come close to a breakdown from overwork. As is inevitable for anyone with a fortune valued at $100 billion, Musk is a controversial figure, although he seems to court attention more than most extremely rich people.
There’s no word on who will play Musk yet, although Channing Tatum is signed on as an executive producer. That doesn’t mean he’ll actually be in the show, although I could kind of see him as Musk.
Feb 6, 2018; Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA; Elon Musk CEO of SpaceX, speaks to the media during a press conference after the Falcon Heavy Launch. Mandatory Credit: Craig Bailey/Florida Today via USA TODAY NETWORK — May 28, 2017; Concord, NC, USA; Grand Marshall and star of upcoming movie Logan Lucky actor Channing Tatum during the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports
It’d be a flattering portrayal but not completely inaccurate. What do you think?
Mindhunter and Star Trek: Beyond writer Doug Jung will write the show. There’s no word on a release date as of yet.
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