HBO Developing Americatown

HBO is developing Americatown, a futuristic drama series project, from writer Bradford Winters and producers Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. Set 25-40 years into the future when the precipitous decline of the U.S. leads to a mass exodus of its citizens, Americatown takes place in a cluster of newly arrived American immigrants in a big foreign city. “By presenting Americans as immigrants in the near future, as both underdog and hero in the drama of global dislocation, we substitute a mirror for the rancor that informs much of the partisan debates on immigration,” Winters said.

In his research for Americatown, Winters had explored possible nightmare scenarios that could bring the U.S. to a collapse decades down the road, like the price of oil skyrocketing and natural disasters reaching catastrophic proportions. Then suddenly oil hovered near $150 a barrel this summer, floods hit the Midwest and the South and Wall Street crashed under the weight of the mortgage crisis.