Peacock has decided not to move forward with its planned Field of Dreams television series reboot. As a result, Universal Television is now pitching the project to other broadcasters and platforms, Variety is reporting.
The show, which is an adaptation of the Oscar-nominated 1989 movie, was ordered straight-to-series at Peacock in August 2021. Michael Schur signed on to write and executive produce the planned sports fantasy drama series under Fremulon. The scribe has reportedly already completed seven hour-long scripts.
Lawrence Gordon of The Gordon Company is also attached to executive produce the project, along with David Miner of 3 Arts and Morgan Sackett. The Gordon Company produced the original film, which starred Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan and the late Ray Liotta. The show had been in casting prior to Peacock’s decision not to move forward with the project.
The planned Field of Dreams television series is intended to be reimagining of the movie, which followed an Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsella (Costner), as he built a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield after being prompted by a mysterious, otherworldly voice. The field eventually attracted the ghosts of legendary baseball players like “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Liotta) and his teammates on the infamous Chicago Black Sox.
The film was based on W. P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel Shoeless Joe. The big screen adaptation was written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson.
The show, which is on track to begin production in a month, is scheduled to shoot in Iowa, which is financially supporting the project, as well as Boston, Minneapolis and Los Angeles. However, it isn’t expected to film at the specific sites used in the movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Written by Schur, the television series is set to reimagine the elements of family, baseball, Iowa and magic that made the movie so beloved by critics and audiences alike.
Besides the Field of Dreams television show, Schur’s credits include creating the NBC comedy series, The Good Place, co-creating the network’s fellow comedy shows, Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the Peacock sitcom, Rutherford Falls. He also served as an executive producer on HBO Max’s breakout, Emmy Award-winning comedy-drama series, Hacks. He’s currently under a reported nine-figure overall deal at Universal TV.
Field of Dreams is the second high-profile television project from a producer under an overall deal to be dropped by its network. Earlier last month, HBO announced it decided not to move forward with J.J. Abrams’ original sci-fi show, Demimonde. The series reportedly had a high budget, at a time when the newly-merged Warner Bros. Discovery is looking to cut major expenditures, per the orders of CEO David Zaslav.
If Peacock hadn’t dropped the project, Field of Dreams would have been the second beloved baseball film to be adapted into a show on a streaming platform. Amazon is set to debut its television adaptation of director Penny Marshall’s 1992 comedy-drama, A League of Their Own, on August 12.
The pickup of the Field of Dreams television series came amid a surge in popularity for the film. Movie fans began talking about the project after Major League Baseball held a game in its honor last summer between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox, which aired in primetime on Fox. It was the most-watched regular-season MLB telecast on any network since 2005, and Fox’s most-streamed regular-season game in its history.