UPDATE | September 13th, 2017:
After a pilot order back on June 23rd, SYFY has officially ordered Nightflyers to series! And not only that, the company is working on a deal that will also bring it to Neflix closely thereafter, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
And though Martin himself won’t be involved with the adaptation, sci-fi and fantasy vet Jeff Buhler serves as a worthy courier of the 1980 story to this new format. On board as producers are Gene Klein, David Bartis, Doug Linman, Alison Rosenweig, Michael Gaeta, Lloyd Ivan Miller, Alice P. Neuhauser, and Robert Jaffe, who wrote the 1987 film adaptation of the book.More details are sure to follow, so keep your ear to the ground!
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Valar George R.R. Mart-ghulis. It’s an ancient High Valerian phrase meaning that “all George R.R. Martin-written things must be adapted for television.” Never one to fly in the face of Braavosi tradition, SYFY is embracing that axiom by announcing that they will develop the Game of Thrones author’s 1980 supernatural sci-fi novella Nightflyers into a TV series.
SYFY and Universal Cable Productions announced on Thursday that George R.R. Martin’s thriller would be included as part of its new slate of programming, including adaptations of sci-fi classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.
Image: Tor Books
Nightflyers tells the story of the crew of The Nightflyer, the most highly advanced ship in the galaxy, that must track down and intercept an alien spacecraft before Earth and humanity as we know it is annihilated. The voyage won’t be easy though as the crew soon learns that both the ship’s artificial intelligence system and the captain—who no one ever sees—might be leading them towards their doom. After all, if the night is dark and full of terrors, just imagine what untold horrors lie in the inky blackness of space.
Nightflyers first appeared as a novella in 1980 and was previously adapted as a feature film in 1987, directed by Robert Collector and starring Catherine Mary Stewart and James Avery. Due to his development deal with HBO, George R.R. Martin is not involved in this adaptation, but he’s got his hands full writing two of the four potential Game of Thrones spin-offs that network is developing. Given that the writer of Jacob’s Ladder, Jeff Buhler, is penning this adaptation though, one can rest easy in the comfort that there’ll be plenty of unexpected and uncomfortably dark twists.
Are you excited to see Nightflyers on TV? Who would you cast on the show? Let us know in the comments below.
Image: The Vista Organization
Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).
Watch George R.R. Martin do his best Taylor Swift impression:
