Elon Musk's Biographer Announces HBO's Cancellation of SpaceX Series, Looks to Produce Show on Another Platform

The planned SpaceX series inspired by Elon Musks life will no longer be moving forward at HBO, according to his biographer Ashlee Vance, author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, which the show was based on.

Its really disappointing, but the project with HBO has ended, Vance shared on X. We had intended to create a dramatized portrayal of Elon Musk and the early SpaceX days. The scripts were clever, funny, and grounded in reality. I truly believe it could have been a major success.

Vance added that navigating Hollywood can be challenging. HBO went through too many internal shifts, which drained the energy needed for this project. There also seems to be hesitation around producing content about Elon, he noted.

Although HBO has not commented on the situation, Vance confirmed that the rights to his biography have reverted back to him and are now available to any network or streaming service interested in developing the series. If serious offers come through to create something remarkable, my inbox is open, he said.

The limited six-episode series was first announced in October 2020, with Channing Tatums Free Association set to produce and Doug Jung, known for Star Trek Beyond and Mindhunter, attached as writer. Executive producers included Vance, Tatum, Reid Carolin, and Peter Kiernan under the Free Association banner. Elon Musk himself was not involved with the project.

The series was described as following Musks journey to make humanity multi-planetary, focusing on him assembling a team of engineers on a remote Pacific island to design and launch SpaceX rockets, culminating with the first manned Falcon 9 launch on May 30, 2020, marking a new era of privately funded space travel.

Author: Maya Henderson