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Except nothing came of it. In 2022, The Daily Beast<\/em> reported<\/a> that Harris had been let go from the show \u201cafter having trouble meeting script deadlines.\u201d HBO said Harris was \u201cnot fired from The Vanishing Half,<\/em>\u201d citing creative differences that were \u201cpart of the normal development process,\u201d and called Harris \u201ca valued collaborator.\u201d He\u2019s since worked with the network on a documentary about Slave Play<\/em> called Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.<\/em><\/p>\n Harris, who calls the The Daily Beast<\/em> \u201ca gossip rag,\u201d stands by his work. He fondly remembers a staff research trip to New Orleans that he organized and blames the show\u2019s fate on systemic issues at the network. (The Daily Beast<\/em> did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason the show didn\u2019t happen is because the book was bought at a very specific time, in June of 2020,\u201d Harris says. \u201cHBO changed leadership within that time period. The Black woman who advocated for our show to be bought, and was our executive, left.\u201d That woman, Kalia Booker King, departed to work for Sinners<\/em><\/a> director Ryan Coogler<\/a>\u2019s production company, Proximity Media. But King\u2019s departure wasn\u2019t the only factor. \u201cI don\u2019t think that the pairing of our producers and me and Aziza as writers was necessarily fully a fit. I think that Issa Rae would\u2019ve made an amazing version of the show in her own way. I don\u2019t think she would\u2019ve made the version that me and Aziza were making.\u201d (Rae did not respond to Vanity Fair<\/em>\u2019s request for comment. HBO and King declined to comment.)<\/p>\n Harris has been accused of caring more about his public persona than his written work. Several people I\u2019ve spoken to\u2014including a film and television actor and theater professionals\u2014suggest he has been known to be unreliable, a natural consequence of being overcommitted and overextended. Harris\u2019s talent, they agree, is undeniable. But there are concerns about his follow-through, according to these sources, none of whom were willing to go on the record for fear of alienating Harris, who has a penchant for responding publicly and ferociously to his critics. (See: Jesse Green, Young Jean Lee.) Fear of retaliation notwithstanding, a question hangs over this gifted writer\u2019s head: Is he self-obsessed, or are people just obsessed with him?<\/p>\n \u201cHe loves to take on more than he should,\u201d says his former CAA agent, Ross Weiner, reflecting on the roughly eight years he spent representing Harris before he left the industry. \u201cBut it was always a good thing.\u201d As of this story\u2019s publication, Harris has no less than six projects in various states of development on IMDb Pro, including The Wives<\/em> and the seemingly abandoned The Vanishing Half.<\/em><\/p>\n Some past collaborators praise him even when the project doesn\u2019t work out. Sydney Baloue, a writer on The Vanishing Half,<\/em> calls Harris \u201cthe creative genius of our time\u201d and said he had an \u201cincredible\u201d experience working on the show. \u201cJeremy is a brilliant writer,\u201d says Allain. \u201cHe and Aziza put together an incredible room of writers who delivered several knockout scripts. Sadly, not everything in development gets made.\u201d<\/p>\n