Bryan Fuller Exits Apple’s ‘Amazing Stories’ Reboot

It sure seems hard to keep Bryan Fuller attached to helm a TV show recently. Through no (apparent) fault of his own, the creator has now exited three series due to conflicts with the parent companies.

Fuller was originally signed on as the showrunner for CBS ALL ACCESS series Star Trek: Discovery, but left the project… somewhat quietly, with the reveal not happening for several months. “The original pitch was to do for science-fiction what American Horror Story had done for horror,” Fuller told Entertainment Weekly about his exit. “It would platform a universe of Star Trek shows.” CBS apparently wanted to “see how it goes”, rather than ordering a whole mess ‘o Trek shows.

More recently, Bryan left American Gods over on STARZ. There was a lot of talk about “creative differences” being the reason, but more recent sources have alluded to the price per episode being too high for the cable network’s pockets. There was also the news that maybe, just maybe, he had another big book-based franchise on the horizon.

Then comes the news that last year, Bryan going to be rebooting the 1980s anthology series Amazing Stories for Apple’s new TV service. He would have been serving as showrunner, but that isn’t happening now. This comes with a reminder that Apple did pretty much say they didn’t want violence or nudity in any of their forthcoming series, which also include a ‘futuristic drama’ called See from Steven Knight, a space show from Battlestar Galactica reboot mastermind Ronald D. Moore, and a Reese Witherspoon drama about a network morning show also starring Jennifer Aniston.

Originally the Amazing Stories reboot was being developed by Fuller for NBC, but it moved to Apple with a series pickup. The Hollywood Reporter says Fuller wanted to do a ‘Black Mirror-type show’, which wasn’t what Apple wanted for their service.

Anyone who is familiar with Fuller’s work was scratching their heads when the announcement was made that he was developing a show under these restrictions. His departure, knowing these Apple rules, isn’t shocking.

Not to mention, he’s got 11 of Anne Rice‘s Vampire Chronicles novels to get to work on developing!