Are you already feeling a Game of Thrones-shaped hole in your heart as the show gears up to premiere what’s essentially part one of its final season? Well, fret not. In addition to all those spinoffs HBO is currently developing, George R.R. Martin’s work has found another venue through which it can devastate audiences for years to come.
The Hollywood Reporter confirmed today that Martin’s 1980 novella Nightflyers has been picked up for development by Syfy as one of three new shows on its upcoming slate. Due to the author’s deal with HBO, Martin won’t be involved with the new production, but it’s merely the latest of his works to be picked up for adaptation; his anthology Wild Cards has been optioned by Universal Cable as well.
The article describes Nightflyers as follows: “Set in the future on the eve of Earth’s destruction, a crew of explorers journey on the most advanced ship in the galaxy, The Nightflyer, to intercept a mysterious alien spacecraft that might hold the key to their survival. As the crew nears their destination, they discover that the ship’s artificial intelligence and never-seen captain may be steering them into deadly and unspeakable horrors deep in the dark reaches of space.” It’s less Thrones than Event Horizon, but offers similar potential for an unspoken sense of growing dread.
Jeff Buhler will write the series, which is currently still in the very early stages of development. But with Thrones coming to an end in 2018, it’s likely that we’ll only see more and more options picked up on Martin’s work, because if there’s one absolute truth about show business, it’s that a hot name will be milked ad infinitum until another emerges. (This isn’t to disparage Martin in the slightest; there’s just a lot of quality fantasy and sci-fi writing in the world by other authors. We’re just saying.)
