A high-profile Peacock show is no longer happening. After it was announced in 2025 that the *Upgrade* sequel series was canceled, producer Tim Walsh further confirmed the news.
Back in 2020, Deadline reported that Leigh Whannell’s 2018 sci-fi thriller *Upgrade* would be getting a TV follow-up. The original film follows a technophobe who, after a mugging leaves him paralyzed, is implanted with a chip that allows him to control his body. The planned series was set to pick up a few years after the events of the film, broadening the universe with an evolved version of STEM and a new host, imagining a world in which the government repurposes STEM to help curb criminal activity.
Blumhouse Television and UCP were set to collaborate on the project, with Whannell attached to direct. However, in early 2025, Whannell alluded to the show’s cancellation during an interview with *The Hollywood Reporter*. He explained, “As far as making a sequel to *Upgrade*, it’s another one where he thinks they’re good and it doesn’t need another. I would love to let that film keep bubbling away as this cult movie, and if people keep thinking that it was somehow prophetic, then that would be great.”
More recently, in an interview with *Bloody Disgusting*, producer Tim Walsh shed additional light on the cancellation. “Leigh and I sold that to Peacock back in 2019,” he recalled. “I think I started my writer’s room for *Upgrade* on the day the world shut down from the pandemic. We had the writer’s room. We wrote the scripts. But, as often happens in this business, somebody up top at Peacock got fired, and a new person came in, thought they knew everything, and dropped that project. It never got picked up later because it was a tumultuous time in the world.”
Considering Whannell has expressed no interest in pursuing an *Upgrade* sequel, it can be assumed that he and Walsh won’t be trying to revive the series. Whether the series would have moved forward if not for the pandemic remains unknown, but COVID-19 certainly disrupted many productions. It seems the pandemic was the final nail in the coffin for the *Upgrade* sequel series.
https://popculture.com/streaming/news/high-profile-peacock-show-officially-scrapped/
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