Somewhere around the final season of The Big Bang Theory, Chuck Lorre had an idea he couldn’t shake: what if there was a portal to other universes in the back room of Stuart’s comic bookstore?
“I’ve always wanted to work in a bigger genre than what we were doing in front of an audience,” Lorre said at the show’s press conference, which tbreak attended. “The idea of working with visual effects and computer graphics and all the things that you can do — if you can imagine it now, you can do it in film.”
Twelve years later, that idea is Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, premiering July 23 on HBO Max in the US — and since HBO shows land on OSN in this region, usually the same day, viewers here won’t be waiting. Kevin Sussman returns as Stuart, joined by Lauren Lapkus as Denise, Brian Posehn as Bert and John Ross Bowie as Kripke, with Lorre, Bill Prady and Zak Penn producing.
The idea nobody wanted
Getting here took longer than anyone planned. Lorre pitched the concept quietly, told almost no one, and then watched it go nowhere for the better part of a decade.
“You grow accustomed to failure,” he said. “No one is interested in helping you pursue this. And then the company gets sold three, four times and somebody comes along and says, ‘you know what? Do that.’” That somebody, according to Lorre, was Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav, who backed the show “right out of the gate.”
Sussman found out during the pandemic, in a meeting so secretive he later doubted it happened. “I didn’t hear from you for months and months,” he told Lorre on the panel. “I became convinced that I imagined it. I went back in my phone and — no, here it is. That conversation took place.”
A sitcom where the apocalypse is real
The show drops four of Big Bang’s supporting players into a single-camera multiverse comedy — a different universe, and a different comic bookstore, every week. The tonal reference point the producers kept returning to was Get Smart.
“Get Smart works because the characters are comedic characters, but the peril is real,” said Prady. Penn described the trick as keeping the danger genuine while the characters stay themselves stubbornly — bickering about petty grievances mid-apocalypse.
Bowie’s favourite example comes early: Stuart steps out into an apocalyptic wasteland and asks what it’s like out there. Bert’s answer? “It’s chilly. Wear layers.”
Lorre traced the whole thing back to Mel Brooks. “There was a certain point while we were in production when I was able to take a step back and go — Mel might laugh,” he said. “That was meaningful to me.”
The commitment to doing things differently extends to the credits: Danny Elfman composed the theme, and it changes every episode, along with an entirely different title sequence each week. Lorre got him with a cold call. “I said, ‘I know the answer is no, but would Danny consider conjuring up a theme song?’ And he killed it.”
Do you need to have watched Big Bang?
Not that anyone here needs much convincing — years of reruns have made these characters household names in the UAE — but the producers were emphatic that newcomers aren’t locked out either. “The characters say who they are, they immediately identify what they’re doing, and the show starts with a mission,” said Prady. Nothing from the original’s storyline carries forward.
“Hopefully if you see a post-apocalyptic nightmare escape and there’s a functioning comic bookstore in it, that’s still funny, whether or not you watch The Big Bang Theory,” Lorre added.
That said, longtime fans get plenty. The multiverse setup lets familiar Big Bang faces turn up in wildly different lives — the producers confirmed returning cast members, though who appears where is being kept under wraps until the episodes air. “They don’t play the character that they played on The Big Bang Theory,” Lorre teased. “A different universe, a different background, a different history.”
And the ensemble at the centre has real history. Bowie and Sussman have known each other for nearly 30 years, since auditioning for commercials in late-90s New York. Lapkus babysat Posehn’s son — who is now 17. “From the first day, I felt like, ‘oh, this is going to work,’” said Posehn.
Stuart has fans in the Middle East
Asked about fan encounters, Sussman offered one from our side of the world: a woman in the Middle East once ran up to him asking what it was like working with Sheldon, declaring, “I’m such a Stuart!”
“That has been one of the delightful things about being part of this franchise,” he said. “Anywhere on earth that has internet access — even if the show doesn’t air there, they find ways.”
As for whether Stuart deserves the title’s harsh verdict, Sussman isn’t offering his character any sympathy. “That’s not the only reason he’s a failure. He owns a comic bookstore, for crying out loud. He’s a multi-level failure.”
Lorre sees it differently: “It’s kind of wonderful to title the show with the spoiler.”
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe premieres July 23 on HBO Max, and is expected on OSN in the region at the same time.
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