Showtime has opted not to move forward on a planned TV series adaptation of Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s thriller “The President Is Missing” following a pilot starring David Oyelowo, Michael Rooker, Ann Dowd, Medina Senghore, Paul Adelstein, and Gina Gallego.
The series would have centered on powerless and politically aimless Vice President James Martin (Oyelowo), who is unexpectedly elevated to the Oval Office when President Jillian Stroud (Dowd) goes missing, despite his every wish to the contrary.
He walks right into a secret, world-threatening crisis, both inside and outside the White House. Dowd herself revealed the news during the press junket for Netflix’s “Rebecca,” saying that a combination of COVID-19 and current political events were behind the show’s demise. She tells Variety:
“[Production] stopped midway and then because of the pandemic, the relevance of it, things needed to be changed in the writing because of what happens to the President. It just wouldn’t have worked. It would have had to have been re-conceived.”
Anthony Peckham wrote the script for the pilot and and executive produced alongside Oyelowo, Clinton, Patterson, Bill Robinson, Leopoldo Gout, Christopher McQuarrie, and Heather McQuarrie.
Source: Variety
