'Snow Crash,' 'Ringworld,' 'Lazarus' Sci-fi Shows Picked Up By Amazon
Amazon is stepping up it's original programming in a big way, with three high-concept sci-fi series in the works. The new pick-ups include adaptations of the cyberpunk novel "Snow Crash," the science fiction classic "Ringworld" and the dystopian comic book "Lazarus."
The streaming service's embrace of effects-heavy genre shows may stem from its push to develop its own "Game of Thrones" and "The Walking Dead" hits. According to Variety, CEO Jeff Bezos has been the one goading Amazon Studios chief Roy Price to move in the direction of high-concept genre programming.
"I do think 'Game of Thrones' is to TV as 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars' was to the movies of the 1970s," Price told Variety. He added, "Everybody wants a big hit and certainly that's the show of the moment in terms of being a model for a hit."
"Snow Crash" will be based on the novel of that title by Neal Stephenson. The A.V. Club calls it "one of the great unadapted novels of modern science fiction."
Stephenson's novel follows pizza deliveryman and hacker Hiro Protagonist and his skateboarder ally Y.T. as they deal with a virtual reality attack by a virus that can reprogram brain function. Even as it depicts trippy adventures in cyberspace, the book also delves into Sumerian mythology and linguistic semiotics. The series will be a co-production with Paramount TV.
The "Ringworld" series will be co-produced by MGM, reports Deadline. It adapts the 1970s "Ringworld" book series by Larry Niven about a habitable world in the shape of a ring that was engineered by a mysterious alien civilization. Niven's story centers on a team of explorers that includes a 200-year-old man, a young woman and a couple of aliens. They end up crashing on the Ringworld and must find a way to survive.
"Lazarus" will be based on the comic book by Greg Rucka. An earlier comic book by Rucka, "Alias," was adapted as the series "Marvel's Jessica Jones." Variety notes that "Lazarus" imagines a near-future dystopian world divided into 16 territories, each one controlled by a single powerful family. They among 16 rival families, who run their territories in a feudal system. Each family has a Lazarus or warrior, that single-handedly fights battles for them. Rucka's comic book focuses on Forever Carlyle, a female Lazarus.
Rucka has signed on as a writer and executive producer of the "Lazarus" adaptation. Michael Lark ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier") and Angela Cheng Caplan are also executive producers.