“Can’t blame me.” Those are the words of Nic Pizzolatto, the creator of True Detective, in response to a post on social media criticizing season four of the HBO anthology, the first cycle in which he has had no direct involvement. That tweet, as well as reposts of messages by the viewers critical of the new season, raises the question of what the show’s original creator has been up to since he left the series.
To refresh: The 2014 season one of True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana detectives tracking a serial killer, was a breakout hit for HBO, earning a Rotten Tomatoes score of 91 among critics and an 88 audience score. The freshman run went on to collect a franchise-high 12 Emmy nominations, helping Pizzolatto skyrocket to fame.
Season two, which starred Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams as detectives probing a corrupt politician, was far less glowingly received, with only a 47 percent rating among critics and a 25 percent score with audiences. The TV Academy, too, was less sanguine on the sophomore run, which earned only a single nomination (for sound mixing). The Mahershala Ali-led third season — in which Pizzolatto was joined by writers David Milch and Graham Gordy — marked a rebound for the franchise in terms of both reception (an 84 percent Tomatoes score with critics) and recognition (nine Emmy nominations). Through its first three seasons, the show won a total of five Emmys — all of them for the freshman run.
Pizzolatto signed his first TV deal with HBO pegged to the debut of True Detective and renewed that pact twice, the last coming in at an estimated $3 million a year. Following the conclusion of season three, as Pizzolatto’s deal was expiring, he opted to leave to pursue a new project that was set up at FX and HBO declined to offer the showrunner a new pact. With HBO retaining the ownership rights to True Detective, sources at the time said the Casey Bloys-led cabler was eager to see what a fresh voice with a different point of view could bring to the franchise.
After leaving HBO, Pizzolatto signed an overall deal with the Disney-owned FX Productions and Fox 21 tied to development of another high-profile show: Redeemer, based on Patrick Coleman’s novel The Churchgoer. The drama, which was to reunite Pizzolatto with star McConaughey, was announced in January 2020 as being in development with a sizable script-to-series commitment at FX (meaning if the scripts came in well, it would trigger a straight-to-series order and bypass the traditional pilot stage). Flash forward a year to January 2021 and, after sitting with Redeemer for the pandemic-impacted 2020 production shutdown, Pizzolatto — with two years remaining on his deal — opted to negotiate an early exit from Disney after FX passed on the show.
Pizzolatto then shifted his attention to features and penned the screenplay for 2021’s The Guilty, a reboot of a Danish film, which starred Jake Gyllenhaal and debuted on Netflix to lukewarm reviews (74 percent with critics and 49 percent among viewers). The pic capped a six-year run during which Pizzolatto also penned features The Magnificent Seven and Galveston, the latter of which was based on his book of the same name that was released by RLJE Films.
Meanwhile, HBO began developing season four of True Detective in March 2022 with exec producer Barry Jenkins — who moved his overall deal from Amazon to HBO — and writer Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid). Jodie Foster was cast in May 2022, and HBO formally greenlit season four two months later when Kali Reis signed on to co-star. Pizzolatto, McConaughey and Harrelson remain credited as exec producers on the franchise, though none have any involvement with the series.
In 2023, as HBO filmed season four, Amazon teamed with Pizzolatto for an untitled Western TV series that was being fast-tracked with a script-to-series commitment. A month later, Amazon refashioned Pizzolatto’s original idea into the scribe’s second stab at The Magnificent Seven. Then, in April of last year, Pizzolatto became the latest in a string of screenwriters for Marvel Studios’ Blade, which reunited him with True Detective season three lead Ali. His work on the script would be short-lived, however, as the writers strike in May halted his efforts and following the end of the strike, Marvel moved on from Pizzolatto’s take and hired Michael Green.
Season four of True Detective ended its six-episode story this month as the most watched run of the anthology with 12.7 million viewers per episode, topping Pizzolatto’s first season (11.9 million). While season four has a 92 percent rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Pizzolatto has been active on social media as he continues to repost messages from viewers who have criticized Night Country (it currently has a 61 percent audience score).
“The way that we relate to the stories we tell is profound and it’s personal, and I cannot make a judgment on his experience. His experience is not my experience. I’ve never started a franchise, so I cannot talk for him. I can talk for me,” showrunner López told THR on Wednesday. “And all I can say is I love True Detective and I love Night Country, and they’re in that same universe, and if you jumped on the boat with me and came for the ride, you’re going to enjoy the fact that the language is the same language and the mythology is the same mythology and the elements are shared. But if you didn’t jump on the boat with me, you’re not going to like it. So I hope you jumped on the boat with me and gave this chance.”
Season four star Reis, responding to a viewer who called out Pizzolatto for “posting other people’s stories about how Issa López ruined the franchise like an absolutely enormous baby,” wrote that it was “a damn shame” that the True Detective creator could not support the new installment. “But hey I guess ‘if you don’t have anything good to share, shit on others’ is the new wave,” she wrote.
Pizzolatto declined to comment for this story but shared an Instagram post Wednesday morning as a way to respond to viewers who didn’t enjoy Night Country: “[T]his here is the place for all your trolling/support/infighting around True Detective and the absolute moral degeneracy and misogyny of anyone who did not think it was good. Let’s move these screeds off my posts about my wife, true love, and my father’s death, kay? I’d say ‘stay civil’ but of course civility has no place when criticism of a television show indicates some form of Hitlerian evil that must be stamped out. So roll on, tide. Satire is welcome, and do try to have a nice day.”
Meanwhile, Amazon says Pizzolatto’s Magnificent Seven TV show remains in development, but declined to provide further details. Sources say Pizzolatto has also penned a feature film that has attracted a top-name star and director that should be announced this month, and is working on two other TV projects. In April, he will make his feature film directorial debut when production begins on Easy’s Waltz, a pic he wrote starring Al Pacino and True Detective season two star Vaughn.
Aaron Couch contributed to this report.