planned film adaptation

Reznor planned a film adaption of the album and noted Year Zero as “part of a bigger picture of a number of things I’m working on. Essentially, I wrote the soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist.” The project moved into the television medium because of high costs for Year Zero as a film, then Reznor found American film producer Lawrence Bender and met with writers. On August 10, 2007, Reznor announced that they would be taking the concept to television networks in an attempt to secure a deal: “We’re about to pitch it to the network, so we’re a couple of weeks away from meeting all of the main people, and we’ll see what happens.” Since first announcing his plans for a television series, progress slowed, reportedly due to the 2007–2008 Writer’s Guild strike , but it nevertheless continued. In 2010, the resultant miniseries, also named Year Zero , was reported to be in development with HBO and BBC Worldwide Productions, with the screenplay and script written by Reznor and Carnivàle writer Daniel Knauf , but at the end of 2012 Reznor said that the project was “in a holding state”.