Published Jun 1, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT
Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.
In 1973, future ER creator and Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton wrote and directed a little sci-fi western called Westworld. Set in a futuristic theme park populated with robotic cowboys for rich tourists to knock around in saloon brawls and pistol duels, Westworld is one of the quirkiest cautionary tales about the dangers of artificial intelligence. When Yul Brynner’s black-clad gunslinger becomes sentient and goes rogue to kill one of the guests, the film becomes an intense cat-and-mouse chase.
It’s a great little movie, with a very abrupt, classically ‘70s ending, but today, when most people think of Westworld, they don’t think of Crichton’s little movie; they think of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s prestige TV adaptation, which ran for four seasons on HBO. Westworld was poised to be HBO’s sci-fi replacement for Game of Thrones, but it was ultimately too complicated and philosophical to break through to the mainstream like GoT did.
Westworld kicked off with a stellar debut season, but it slowly dropped off over the next three seasons, alienating everyone but diehard genre fans, before quietly dying a death and being removed from HBO Max. Now, Warner Bros. is revisiting the property, but they’re not rebooting the TV show; they’re remaking Crichton’s movie.
Why A Westworld Movie Remake Feels Like A Risk
David Koepp, the screenwriter behind the original Jurassic Park movie, the original Mission: Impossible movie, the original Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie — you get the idea; he’s the face that launched a thousand franchises — is working on a script for a remake of Westworld. A remake has been in development hell for decades, with everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Quentin Tarantino linked to the project at various points, but now, it seems to finally be moving forward.
And honestly, it doesn’t seem like a very good idea. It’s too soon after the TV show to do something entirely new with the Westworld name. Plus, the show has set a high bar that a movie remake would struggle to live up to. It would have to be different enough from the TV show, but not too different, and that would be a tricky balance to strike. And it’s not like the TV show was perfect — could this movie avoid the problems that plagued the show?
A Feature-Length Finale For Westworld's TV Story Would Have Made More Sense
Remaking a more than 50-year-old movie that almost no one remembers is a bad idea under any circumstances. But in the case of Westworld, there’s a much more recent version of the property — a wildly unfaithful, hugely ambitious adaptation — that audiences associate with that title. It would make a lot more sense for Warner Bros. to make a feature-length finale for the TV show.
The end of season 4 was already a semi-reboot, as Dolores looked to prove humanity shouldn’t be wiped out, so the stage is set for a follow-up story that would provide long-time fans with the closure they deserve and also give new audiences a standalone, self-contained narrative. If HBO isn’t going to renew Westworld for a fifth season, then it can at least commission a movie to conclude the series — especially since their parent company apparently wants to make a Westworld movie, and is going about it all wrong.
This wouldn’t be the first time that HBO allowed a cancelled show to come back for a movie-length finale to wrap things up; they’ve also given feature-length finales to Deadwood, Looking, and Hello Ladies. They gave Entourage a feature-length finale after it already got a pretty perfect ending on TV.
HBO has an unfinished Westworld series in need of a proper ending, and Warner Bros. wants to make a Westworld movie. Why can’t this studio just put two and two together and turn their Westworld movie remake into a Westworld series finale?
Release Date 2016 - 2022
Network HBO
Showrunner Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy
Directors Fred Toye, Jennifer Getzinger, Stephen Williams, Vincenzo Natali, Craig William Macneill, Anna Foerster, Craig Zobel, Hanelle M. Culpepper, Helen Shaver, Jonny Campbell, Michelle MacLaren, Neil Marshall, Nicole Kassell, Tarik Saleh, Uta Briesewitz, Lisa Joy, Meera Menon
Writers Roberto Patino, Carly Wray, Ron Fitzgerald, Daniel T. Thomsen, Karrie Crouse, Wes Humphrey
English (US) ·