Final Fantasy 14 TV Show Is "Dead" In The Water

A phoenix down won't help resurrect the Final Fantasy XIV live-action TV series, because it's "dead." Apparently the "size and scale" was just too much for a company like Amazon or Netflix to pick up the show, according to Hivemind cofounder Dinesh Shamdasani.

Spotted by Eurogamer, Shamdasani responded to a question on X (formerly known as Twitter) about the Final Fantasy live-action show that was announced in June 2019. "Dead," said the Hivemind cofounder, who now serves as CEO at Bad Idea and partner at Allnighter.

"We took around a fantastic pilot script by Ben Lustig [and Jake Thornton] along with a multi-season plan they built with our showrunners but got rejected across the board," Shamdasani said. "The size and scale needed to do it right proved too much for anyone to want to risk. Amazon came closest."

Hivemind is a production company behind Netflix's The Witcher as well as The Expanse on Amazon Prime TV. Shamdasani was originally listed as an executive producer on the Final Fantasy live-action series, which would have been set in the MMO's Eorzea. Lustig and Thornton were not only writers for the project, but also executive producers. In fact, Thornton chimed in on Shamdasani's post, adding that he believes the COVID-19 pandemic hurt the show's chances as well. "We took it out just as studios began to zip up their purse strings," Thornton wrote on X.

As for the game, Final Fantasy XIV will get a new expansion called Dawntrail later this year. The story will take players to a new beach vacation location in Eorzea. In addition, the MMO will finally come to Xbox this year.