Soderbergh Updates on HBO ‘Mosaic’ Project, Sets 2018 Premiere
It’s been almost two years since Steven Soderbergh had in mind to direct a new HBO project titled Mosaic, one that allowed viewers to shift character perspective. At long last, the Logan Lucky director shares new details on the Sharon Stone series, including a likely 2018 premiere.
Soderbergh previously denied that the the project would be “choose-your-own-adventure,” but rather an app-driven series that lets viewers choose and shift who they follow in one singular story. The director called Mosaic a “branching narrative” in conversation with Film Comment (h/t Collider), simultaneously revealing first details of the story:
It’s a murder. Not a murder mystery so much. There are two different time frames, one contemporary and one four years ago. This case that everyone thought was solved gets reexamined with interesting results. So you get to go back and forth depending on who you want to follow at what point. It seemed to be a kind of story that benefited from this multiverse perspective. The writing and the editing of it was tricky. The giant board that [writer Ed Solomon] and I had was a real head-scratcher.
The project is intended to be experienced with an app on your platform of choice, allowing viewers to go “right or left” for certain chapters to decide their angle on the story. That said, Soderbergh says a straight-forward version will air on HBO in January 2018:
There will be a linear episodic version that’s set to air on HBO in January, but ideally going forward, it would just be an app. I offered HBO the possibility of doing a linear cut because I needed more money to develop the technology. I called them and said I have a lot of material that’s not in the app; ‘I can cut a six-hour episodic version of this that will be its own thing.’ And they said, absolutely.
Few details are confirmed beyond Sharon Stone and Garrett Hedlund starring, but could Mosaic be the first in a wave of interactive TV storytelling?