Paramount has clinched the movie rights to The Martian Chronicles.
Written by sci-fi master Ray Bradbury during the 1940s, the collection of short stories chronicles the lives and tales of humans attempting to colonize the mysterious red planet.
In Chronicles, Bradbury describes the challenges of taming the enigmatic planet, the uneasy human relationship with the indigenous Martian population and an eventual nuclear war in which the surviving humans become the “new” Martians.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Hollywood has attempted to take on The Martian Chronicles.
To be sure, a TV miniseries – written by Richard Matheson and starring Rock Hudson – was filmed in 1980 by NBC and the BBC.
Subsequently, Universal acquired the feature rights in 1997, with Steven Spielberg attempting to move the project forward.
A script was penned by a number of writers, including Michael Tolkin and John Orloff, which apparently focused on a commander investigating two missing space missions on Mars. However, the Universal initiative went nowhere fast.
Fortunately, Paramount – which seems like it is serious about the Chronicles effort – has enlisted the help of John Davis, who will producing an adaption of the classic space novel.
Davis has been involved in a number of sci-fi projects, including Gulliver’s Travels, Marmaduke and Predator.
[Via Hollywood Reporter]
