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Need for Speed may have made a mild cinematic debut back in 2014, but it almost made its way to television screens in the mid-2000s, according to former producer Craig Lieberman.
On his YouTube channel, Lieberman detailed how after he was employed as a consultant on Need For Speed: Underground at EA, he pitched a reality TV series to the company based on the popular racing game franchise. Lieberman’s idea was to pit several teams against one another in challenges that were inspired by the games, with each squad of contestants being responsible for assembling their own vehicles that would be used in these events.
According to Lieberman, one idea was for teams to compete in a timed lap challenge, and then move on to a segment where a panel of judges would vote on their cars and performance. To tie into the release of Need for Speed: Underground, members from each time would go head-to-head in in-game races.
So what stopped Need for Speed from making it to television sets? The two primary problems were the budget–which Lieberman estimated to be at over $6 million–and there being just too many TV shows about cars on the market already.
The project was eventually scrapped, with Need for Speed eventually ending up on the silver screen in a cinematic effort that starred Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul.
As for the game franchise, the last main game in the series was 2019’s Need for Speed Heat, while a remaster of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was released in 2020. Burnout developer Criterion Games took a break from developing Need for Speed this year so that it could help DICE on Battlefield 2042, postponing the next racing game in the series to 2022.
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