What happened after the end of the Truman Show?аа
At the end of the film, Truman
leaves the show
But do we have any indication what happened after the show ended?
Specifically, was a new child found to allow the Truman Show to continue?
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2Is The Truman Show really Science Fiction? – Voldemort's Wrath 15 hours ago
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8@Voldemort'sWrath We've been over this on Meta, consensus seems to be that it is. – F1Krazy 15 hours ago
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14@VoldemortsWrath - Did you miss the part where the show was filmed under a 10 mile wide dome next to Hollywood? – Valorum 15 hours ago
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1Please note, much as I enjoy downvoting Valorum, this question is definitely on topic: scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12656/… – KutuluMike 14 hours ago
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2Maybe Truman sued for emotional damages or became a mechanic at Bob's Repair. The movie itself (obviously) doesn't say, and I doubt there's any EU material or official statements by the writers concerning this issue. – Ham Sandwich 13 hours ago
2 Answers
In an early script by Andrew Niccol, a girl named Zoe becomes the new Truman:
We focus on the screen of a television. A small FEMALE BABY sucks a toy on a blanket in the backyard of Truman's old suburban home in Queens, the lawn he mowed for ten years of his life. The infant's doting parents, MARLON and the new actress VIVIEN, enter frame and begin to fuss over the child. A border around the action on the screen announces, "ZOE - Total Record Of a Human Life".
Truman and Sylvia have a kid. Note that this is a much, much darker version in which Truman is an alcoholic.
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It might be worth editing in some quotes from the interviews/articles in case the links go dead – Valorum 12 hours ago
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@Valorum archive of script here. – Stormblessed 12 hours ago
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3I'm not sure how this answers the question. This concerns a script that wasn't used, – Ham Sandwich 11 hours ago
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2@HamSandwich - Given that large elements of the earlier script made it into the film, it's likely that elements of this would have also been included, had the film gone on past the leaving point. – Valorum 11 hours ago
The film's co-writer Peter Weir wrote a considerable amount of back-story for a mockumentary that eventually ended up recycled into interstitials and DVD extras as well as a much shorter Nickelodeon special.
One of the things he wrote was a show 'bible' to give cast and crew some information about the Truman Show as well as, critically, where it would go after Truman left. In short, the show ended when he exited and didn't restart due to changes in the law, preventing the OmniCam Network from simply adopting another unwanted child.
There were highs and lows in the ratings over the years, the show going through a rather bad slump in the later years prior to Truman’s departure. Would it have gone with Truman to the grave? Nobody knows, nor will they ever know, as it’s unlikely there’ll be another Truman, as witnessed by countless “reality” shows that attempted to emulate the success of “The Truman Show” and failed.
Extract from the Guinness Book of Records:
“...while the longest-running, continuous, (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) live television programming in history was “The Truman Show.” The program was broadcast from a single studio in Burbank, California (SEE Largest Inflatable Structure in the world, p. 987) and sent live to the world via satellite by U.S. broadcast giant, The Omnicam Corporation. The show, which occupied its own channel, ran for twenty-nine years, ending when the star, Truman Burbank, an orphan unaware that the town in which he lived was a stage-set or that his every move had been filmed from birth, discovered the “secret” and walked away from the show (SEE Most Watched Television Events, p. 549).
Subsequent legislation in the United States has prevented any further exploitation of this kind, although similar programs have since been attempted from countries with lax media laws. So far no show has proved to have the staying power of “The Truman Show”.
THE TRUMAN SHOW: Introduction by Peter Weir
It seems plausible that Truman, under Sylvia's influence (as head of the Truman Liberation Front) and relaying his own experiences, encouraged the passage of this law.
