Geekery: ‘Westworld’ Creators to Adapt William Gibson’s ‘The Peripheral’
Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan have chosen their next project. They’re sticking with mind-bending sci-fi for their next series this time on Amazon.
The Peripheral is one of Gibson’s more recent works. Its story involves multiple futures that collide when a crime takes place.
In one timeline Flynne Fisher supports her brother Burton, who suffered neurological damage in the Marines’ elite Haptic Recon unit, working in a 3D print shop. Barton gets involved in a virtual world and pulls Flynne in with him, but the online world isn’t what it seems. In a timeline set 70 years later, Wilf Netherton lives in a well to do society where reaching back into the past is something you do for amusement.
The source material is in good hands with Nolan and Joy. They’re also bringing in Scott B. Smith (got an Oscar nod for adapting A Simple Plan) to work on the script. As much as I enjoy Gibson’s work, I’m glad the screenplay is in different hands. Last time he adapted his own work we got this…
Jeff Bezos is on the hunt for his own Game of Thrones and he’s willing to spend millions – in the case of LoTR, billions – to get it. There’s rumors of a Dark Tower series and on based on the Hugo winning The Three-Body Problem. They’re trying everything to see what sticks. Amazon is also moving away from its release a bunch of pilots model and sign what’s popular model; and moving to script-to-series.
If the script for The Peripheral is picked up, we’ll get a full series. I hope we do.
There’s some real schlock being produced in the battle of the streaming service giants, but there are plenty of gems. It’s an interesting time to be a small screen addict.
