HBO hires showrunner to replace Joss Whedon on The Nevers

Joss Whedon left his new HBO show The Nevers a couple months back, citing exhaustion. But the series, which is coming this year, will continue under a new boss.

This year, HBO is debuting The Nevers, a story about a group of Victorian women who have special powers and fight a secret war as “the champions of this new underclass.” It’s a pitch that’s sounds straight from the brain of Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator and The Avengers director Joss Whedon, and that’s because it is.

That said, Whedon announced he was stepping back from the show a couple months ago, citing exhaustion and the difficulties of making the show in pandemic conditions — essentially, he blamed 2020, which is fair enough. But it’s hard not to look at that announcement and wonder if it’s a cover for WarnerMedia gently firing Whedon after Justice League star Ray Fisher accused him of “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable,” accusations that resulted in an internal investigation. We may never know for sure.

After that, it was unclear what would become of The Nevers, which given Whedon’s experience with long-form television HBO was probably planning to keep around for awhile. And indeed, it looks like HBO wants to move forward with things, just absent Whedon. The Hollywood Reporter has it that the network has hired someone to replace him as showrunner: British screenwriter Philippa Goslett, who wrote movies like Mary Magdalene and How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 26: Writer Philippa Goslett attends the ‘Mary Magdalene’ special screening held at The National Gallery on February 26, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) /

Whedon has a pretty distinctive writing style, and I’ll be curious to see how a show started by him continues with someone else in the driver’s seat.

In any case, The Nevers is set to come out this spring. You can catch a snippet of it in HBO Max’s 2021 preview video:

The cast is pretty big, led by Outlander’s Laura Donnelly as Amalia True. We’ll see how it goes.

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