Scrapped 'Upgrade' TV spin-off would have followed criminals fitted with STEM, producer says

Producer Tim Walsh—who was set to be showrunner—says the planned TV spin-off of Leigh Whannell’s 2018 film Upgrade was scrapped after being sold to Peacock in 2019, and that the series “died,” he told Bloody Disgusting; Whannell had confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter in 2025 that the series was no longer happening.

Walsh said the show would have centered on criminals receiving the film’s STEM chip as a form of reform, describing it as “like A Clockwork Orange” and a series about “four anti-heroes – four criminals,” adding, “So, my version died,” in the interview.

The original Upgrade starred Logan Marshall-Green as a man left paralyzed who volunteers for an experimental treatment that restores mobility and grants superior strength and speed, a premise that sent the character down a path of revenge and gave the film a near-future, tech-driven tone.

Walsh said timing and industry turmoil hurt the series: Leigh Whannell and Walsh sold the project to Peacock in 2019, they opened a writer’s room and wrote scripts, but the pandemic hit and, Walsh claimed, a leadership change at Peacock led to the project being dropped and never picked up again.

Whannell has said he’s comfortable leaving Upgrade as a cult film and was not pushing a sequel, noting in 2025 that the film’s open questions and its prescient tech feel are part of its appeal; whether the spin-off will ever be revived remains unclear.

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