[Vengeance]

https://www.theverge...television-show


Last fall, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos charged his company’s studio division to produce bigger shows with a “global appeal,” in an attempt to compete with other streaming video companies in the race to produce high-end original content. Since then, Amazon has moved quickly to begin developing an impressive slate of genre television shows that include adaptations of novels such as Ringworld, Snow Crash, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Amazon has acquired the rights to another huge book: Consider Phlebas, the first installment of Iain M. Banks’s space opera Culture series.

THR reports that Amazon will partner with British screenwriter Dennis Kelly (who created the critically acclaimed Channel 4 series Utopia), and that should the scripts for the series work out, it will order it directly to a series. By acquiring big-name franchises such as Lord of the Rings, while facing intense competition from companies like Netflix, Apple, and Disney, it’s clear that Amazon is working to aggressively pursue major projects that play with complicated stories.

The Culture series is an undisputed classic of modern science fiction. Banks — who died in 2013 — forged a dual career as a literary and science fiction novelist. He began the series in 1987 with Consider Phlebas, which introduced readers to a space-faring, utopian society of humans, aliens, and artificial intelligences living across the galaxy. The novel follows an episode in a war between the Culture and the Idiran Empire, in which a shapeshifting mercenary named Horza is hired by the Idirans to track down a Culture artificial intelligence that was shot down and hiding on a forbidden world.



Man this is super exciting. If they do as good of a job as Netflix did for Altered Carbon then it could be great.

[QuickTidal]

If this gets made, I will be very excited for Season 4.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

There's no way this ends up being good (but I hope it does).

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 21 February 2018 - 07:42 PM

[Werthead]

Waiting for the first HALO fans who start screaming the Orbitals are rip-offs of the Halos.

[Vengeance]

Werthead, on 21 February 2018 - 08:53 PM, said:

Waiting for the first HALO fans who start screaming the Orbitals are rip-offs of the Halos.

I would hope that any Halo fans on this board would know better. On reddit they are probably screaming by now.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Post-kneejerk reaction:

It's funny that they're getting Dennis Kelly to write a show about a flawed utopia, due to (as mentioned in the article) him having created the show Utopia.

Here's a quote from him that makes me believe he gets what the Culture universe is about:

Quote

“Iain Banks has long been a hero of mine, and his innate warmth, humor and humanism shines through these novels,” said Kelly. “Far from being the dystopian nightmares that we are used to, Banks creates a kind of flawed paradise, a society truly worth fighting for — rather than a warning from the future, his books are a beckoning.”

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 21 February 2018 - 10:28 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

It's been a while since I read any Banks is Consider Phlebas the one about the war between the Culture and the Space Lizards (Indirans?)

[Morgoth]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 21 February 2018 - 10:28 PM, said:

Post-kneejerk reaction:

It's funny that they're getting Dennis Kelly to write a show about a flawed utopia, due to (as mentioned in the article) him having created the show Utopia.

Here's a quote from him that makes me believe he gets what the Culture universe is about:

Quote

“Iain Banks has long been a hero of mine, and his innate warmth, humor and humanism shines through these novels,” said Kelly. “Far from being the dystopian nightmares that we are used to, Banks creates a kind of flawed paradise, a society truly worth fighting for — rather than a warning from the future, his books are a beckoning.”

That does seem somewhat promising. And with Amazon money behind it, maybe it'll turn out good.

[Morgoth]

Tiste Simeon, on 22 February 2018 - 05:55 AM, said:

It's been a while since I read any Banks is Consider Phlebas the one about the war between the Culture and the Space Lizards (Indirans?)

Yeah. The main character is the shapeshifting agent of the Indirans.

[Abyss]

I would guess this will be along the lines of THE EXPANSE for production value, with even less resemblance to the books.
Admittedly I've only read two Culture books, but i can't see it working for a series of episodes without serious rework.

[Vengeance]

Abyss, on 22 February 2018 - 02:03 PM, said:

I would guess this will be along the lines of THE EXPANSE for production value, with even less resemblance to the books.
Admittedly I've only read two Culture books, but i can't see it working for a series of episodes without serious rework.

If each season is a book it could work. With the success of The Expanse and Altered Carbon now is the time for a good try.

[Tiste Simeon]

I would dearly love to see how a good TV production would manage Player of Games...

[Abyss]

Vengeance, on 22 February 2018 - 03:05 PM, said:

Abyss, on 22 February 2018 - 02:03 PM, said:

I would guess this will be along the lines of THE EXPANSE for production value, with even less resemblance to the books.
Admittedly I've only read two Culture books, but i can't see it working for a series of episodes without serious rework.

If each season is a book it could work. With the success of The Expanse and Altered Carbon now is the time for a good try.

There are the 'problems' of each book having its own cast and setting (more or less) within the bigger universe.
I suspect even amazon isn't ballsy enough to plan on a different cast, sets, and background fx each season.


Am rather curious to see how Netflix handles that with CARBON actually.