Apple Cancels Deranged-Sounding Richard Gere Show About Millennials Driving Vietnam Vets to Do Mass Shootings

There’s simply no accounting for taste: Apple is reportedly ditching its gritty drama Bastards, which was slated to star Richard Gere as a Vietnam vet who unites with his grieving friend to go on a killing spree over…..millennials.

You absolutely must read the show’s description, via The Hollywood Reporter, which reported the news that Apple won’t be making the show for its yet-to-launch streaming service:

Picked up straight to series late last year, Gere was set to star as one of two elderly Vietnam vets and best friends who find their monotonous lives upended when a woman they both loved 50 years ago is killed by a car. Their lifelong regrets and secrets collide with their resentment of today’s self-absorbed millennials and the duo then go on a shooting spree.

Honestly, I can’t pick just one favorite part of this pitch, which is apparently based an an Israeli drama. Is it two old guys mourning the loss of a woman they loved long ago? Could it be the fact that they have “regrets and secrets” which “collide” which their disdain for millennials? Or is it, perhaps, the fact that these Vietnam vets sublimate their grief—not to mention otherwise “monotonous lives”—into….a mass shooting? Without parallel the most deranged pitch I’ve heard in a long time—and I work at Splinter.

Still, despite having absolutely no reason NOT to make this show in the year 2019, nope, none at all, the show’s co-writing/showrunning team tried in vain to save it (emphasis mine):

Gordon and Leight collaborated on two scripts and, sources say, were met with notes from Apple about the show’s tone of vigilante justice. Sources say Gordon did not want to focus on the larger metaphor of friendship between the two Vietnam vets and wanted to focus on the darker elements of the series, with Fox 21 executives backing the veteran producer. Leight departed shortly afterward and Apple, which multiple sources note is looking for aspirational programming, wanted to ensure the series was focused on the heart and emotion of the central friendship.

Wow, two veterans taking care of each other during a tough time and finding a new vocation in this world isn’t “aspirational” enough for the MAGA-hating tech giants. Liberal Hollywood, home of “the true racists,” win again.