HBO is producing a TV series based on Michael Crichton’s science fiction novel The Sphere, says GeekTyrant. The project will be helmed by Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, and Denise Thé, a creative team behind Westworld – another HBO sci-fi show based on Crichton’s work. Thé will work as its showrunner and lead writer while Nolan and Joy will produce.
First published in 1987, The Sphere follows a group of scientists sent to a deep-sea habitat at the bottom of the Pacific. Their goal is to investigate the remains of a giant extraterrestrial space ship that crashed there centuries ago. Soon enough, tensions grow as scientists and crew start suffering claustrophobia, vivid hallucinations as well as attacks by the mysterious outside force. In 1998, Barry Levinson directed a movie adaptation of the novel featuring Peter Coyote, Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Liev Schreiber, and Sharon Stone in leading roles.
Besides working on Westworld, Nolan and Joy are currently adapting William Gibson’s science fiction novel The Peripheral. The show was picked up last November as a part of their $150 million deal with Amazon Prime Video. Even better, the duo is also producing a live-action adaptation of the critically acclaimed video game series Fallout.
