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Apple TV+ smash ‘Severance’ may become its own cinematic universe

MacDailyNews

May 30

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Apple TV+’s award-winning series “Severance” has been renewed for a third season.

“Severance” created a whole new sector of Apple TV+ sci-fi fans. The streamer has always been quietly dominating the genre with shows like “Foundation,” “For All Mankind,” and “Silo,” but “Severance” set a new bar.

Ethan Shanfeld for Variety:
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When I interviewed both of them in December before the premiere, [Adam] Scott and [Ben] Stiller were focused on rallying those who watched Season 1 to tune back in for Season 2. Now, the show is bigger than either of them could have imagined: What started as a niche sci-fi hit with awards and critical acclaim has become a cultural juggernaut. Terms like “innie” and “outie” have permeated office vocabulary. Its characters and their cubicles took over Grand Central Station — and the internet — for two days. And its theme song was performed for some 50,000 people at Coachella.
Stiller first read the pilot for “Severance” nearly a decade ago… Pitching the show was the hard part. “Nobody wanted it except Apple, which didn’t even exist yet as a streamer,” says Stiller. “It was a little bit like, ‘Oh great, the computer company!’ It didn’t even seem real.” (Now, Stiller says with confidence that Apple is “the best place” for “Severance,” and not only because of the “meta levels” of it being a massive global tech company. “Thank goodness we didn’t end up at, like, Showtime or something.”)
Do you see “Severance” as a franchise with spinoff shows? Stiller speaks slowly: “There are two specific ideas — that I won’t tell you — that we’ve talked about internally as possible spinoff ideas.” Asked what stage of development the spinoff ideas are in, or whether they have been discussed with Apple, all Stiller says, with a coy smile, is: “They are nascent.”
As for other extensions of the show, Stiller says it’d “be great to have a ‘Severance’ video game.” Scott agrees: “I think it lends itself to one.” And, at some point, they want to make merchandise like Lumon keyboards, as long as it feels “bespoke and specific to the show.”

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MacDailyNews Note: Speaking of Lumon keyboards, official or not, Atomic Keyboard is developing the “MDR Dasher Keyboard,” which is inspired by the legendary Data General “Dasher” Terminal — the “Severance” keyboard when featured in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department.

Not yet available, an a price unknown, Atomic Keyboard’s modern recreation will boast a unique 73-key, 70% layout with no Escape, no Control, and no Options keys (Praise Kier). Atomic is planning to launch this project on Kickstarter in June or July. More info here.

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