The Brilliant Bryan Fuller May Be Too Uncompromising For His Own Good

The Wrap has a rundown this week of how Crystal Lake, the $85 million Friday the 13th series produced by A24, completely fell apart for Peacock. There is a lot of finger-pointing, including at the beloved indie studio, which may have been too inexperienced to take on a project of this magnitude, but ultimately — as is so often the case where he is involved — much of the blame falls at the feet of showrunner Bryan Fuller. From The Wrap:

An individual close to A24 said Fuller was too busy working on his upcoming movie “Dust Bunny” to pay attention to “Crystal Lake.” This has happened to him before, on “Star Trek: Discovery” and “American Gods” — two shows Fuller exited over budget concerns … A source close to A24 maintains it was Fuller who didn’t want an actual writers’ room and that they would have hired the writers on if the show wasn’t so over-budget.

Whether it was the fault of A24, which had no experience in big television productions, or Bryan Fuller, one thing is certain: It’s not the first time that a Bryan Fuller series has fallen apart.

The showrunner — best known for the cult favorites Pushing Daisies and Hannibal (the latter of which provided the inspiration for how Crystal Lake would be adapted) — has had a long history of issues as showrunner. Even before Pushing Daisies, Fuller left the first series he ever created, Dead Like Me, early in the first season (the show would run for two seasons). He did manage to stick around for the entirety of his next series, Wonderfalls, but that’s perhaps because only four episodes aired before it was canceled. He created two more series before Pushing Daisies that never even passed the pilot stage.

That happens, although it seems to happen a lot to Bryan Fuller. Between Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, he has four more series that never went anywhere, including Sellevision, No Kill, Mind Fields (with Lisa Joy), and The Munsters reboot, Mockingbird Lane, which wasn’t picked up, although the pilot eventually aired as a Halloween special on NBC. His High Moon for SyFy, filmed while the first season of Hannibal was airing, also failed to materialize.

Fuller’s career since Hannibal, it seems, has been even more erratic. He created American Gods for Starz, but left after the first season, reportedly not just over budget issues but because of a fraught relationship with the source material’s author, Neil Gaiman. Fuller jumped to an adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles novel series by Anne Rice, but quickly left that project, too. Between that and the nearly two years he spent on Crystal Lake before it fell apart, he was also working on a new adaptation of Stephen King’s Christine. Not surprisingly, that, too, never materialized.

Beyond that, Fuller was also the first showrunner involved in Star Trek: Discovery, but he exited that series before it got off the ground over budgetary issues and a strained relationship between the showrunner and CBS. He also exited Apple’s Amazing Stories anthology after two years of work, citing creative differences.

The consistent issues with Fuller’s projects and collaborators suggest that he may be the common denominator in these problems. The consequences of Fuller’s uncompromising approach and creative vision have also been significant for the projects he left behind. Star Trek: Discovery faced delays and creative upheaval following his exit, while American Gods struggled to maintain its momentum and cohesion in subsequent seasons. The collapse of Crystal Lake, likewise, has left A24 and Peacock with a substantial financial loss and a high-profile failure.

Fuller’s upcoming film Dust Bunny, which reunites him with Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen, as well as Sigourney Weaver and David Dastmalchian, could be an opportunity for him to showcase his talents without the constraints of episodic television.

Ultimately, while Fuller’s talent is undeniable, his recurring conflicts and project failures raise some questions about his ability to get along with others. As the Justified quote suggests, “You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”