Ali
In an interview with THR in 2018, former “Arli$$” star Robert Wuhl – also known for his role as Alexander Knox in Tim Burton’s “Batman” – mentioned the possibility of a reboot of the HBO comedy. In the sequel series, Wuhl’s Arliss Michaels would be sitting in jail, telling us stories of all the awful things he did during his time in business.
The original series, which ran for 7 seasons during 1996 and 2002, told of a sports agency president who runs around like a headless chicken trying to appease every one of his clients’ needs. It tackled some very serious issues that would likely resonate even more nowadays.
In an interview with The Production Meeting, Wuhl says HBO haven’t shown much interest in bringing back their series.
“The problem there is HBO. I mean, they would have to give the go-ahead and so far they have not – and they will never sell; HBO’s policy is to hold onto all intellectual property. I wouldn’t say it’s dead totally but, you know, it’s on life support.”
Wuhl explained that although their audience grew each year, “Arli$$” was not considered the “hip show on HBO. We weren’t the elitist show on HBO – and everything else pretty much was. We were the stepchild there. It was also polarizing – people either loved it or hated it. Now, because it’s on HBO Max, people are watching it and realizing all the social issues we got into- we were doing episodes about domestic abuse, steroid abuse, drug abuse, and there were transgender athletes, and doing this twenty years ago. People are going ‘Oh, this show is ahead of it’s time’ – I say “ya know, I’d rather be ‘of my time’ and have Seinfeld money.””
Here’s a taste of “Arli$$”, which was co-created and produced by Mike Tollin, of “Rescue Me” fame :
