What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century,

Lily-Rose Depp as a glamorous, troubled pop star. The Weeknd as a slimy, modern cult leader. Supporting roles for Blackpink’s Jennie, Troye Sivan, and a handful of other buzzy stars. And in-demand director Sam Levinson at the helm. For months, the hype machine has been at full tilt for HBO’s upcoming series The Idol, which is being billed as a darker, crazier, and more risqué version of Levinson’s smash-hit Euphoria.

Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye are the “sick and twisted minds” behind the “sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood” (HBO’s words) that follows pop superstar Jocelyn (Depp) as she navigates the seedy underbelly of the music industry and falls under the spell of Tedros (Tesfaye), a mysterious owner of a popular L.A. nightclub who secretly runs a cult reminiscent of NXIVM and Scientology.

Though the show was ordered to series in November 2021, it’s been months since HBO gave a concrete update about when The Idol will debut. One source with knowledge of the production schedule tells Rolling Stone the network initially hoped for The Idol to premiere last fall, taking over the Sunday time slot left open by House of the Dragon, which ended in October. Yet three teaser trailers have come and gone, and HBO can still only offer a vague “later this year.” (A rep for the network declined to comment on when the show will air.)

Now, production sources tell Rolling Stone that even they are in the dark on when the show will make it to air, and have little idea about what the final version will look like, claiming the production was plagued by delays, reshoots, and rewrites. “It was, let’s just say, a shitshow,” one says.

The first public inkling of trouble came last April, when director Amy Seimetz, of The Girlfriend Experience and She Dies Tomorrow, suddenly exited with roughly 80 percent of the six-episode series finished. HBO addressed the news by confirming The Idol was set to have a major creative overhaul and would be adjusting the cast and crew. There was little explanation for the shakeup, except for reports that Tesfaye, who is co-creator, felt the show was heading too much into a “female perspective.”

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In interviews with 13 members of the show’s cast and crew, Rolling Stone has learned the drastic delay was caused by Levinson taking over as director and scrapping the nearly-finished $54-75 million project to rewrite and reshoot the entire thing.

With Seimetz out of the picture, HBO handed the reins to Levinson, only to have him weaken the show’s overarching message, many sources say, by dialing up the disturbing sexual content and nudity to match — and even surpass — that of his most successful show, Euphoria.

“What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century,” one production member explains. “The things that we subject our talent and stars to, the forces that put people in the spotlight and how that can be manipulated in the post-Trump world.” However, they add, “It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”