Spike announced today that it plans on adapting Kim Stanley Robinson's award-winning novel Red Mars into a television series.
Red Mars is the first book in the Mars Trilogy, a series of science fiction novels that chronicles the lives of a group tasked with terraforming and settling on the harsh surface of Mars while Earth suffers from overpopulation and environmental disasters.
All three books — Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars — are award-winning and have seen translations in over 20 languages.
"The heart and soul of Red Mars is about humanity," said Sharon Levy, executive vice president of original series at Spike, in an emailed press release. "This group of strangers must find a way to live together and survive under the most daunting conditions mankind has ever faced to become the first living generation of Martians. They will be each other's greatest source of strength — and if they can't coexist — the greatest reason for failure."
Serving as writer and executive producer on the project is J. Michael Straczynski, who also worked on Sense 8, Babylon Five and Changeling. Vince Gerardis (Game of Thrones) will act as co-executive producer, along with Skydance's David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross. Skydance is the production company behind several recent movies, including Terminator Genisys and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.
"We are thrilled to join forces with Spike to bring Kim Stanley Robinson's dynamic world of the Mars Trilogy to television audiences for the first time ever, particularly in the brilliant creative voice of science fiction legend J. Michael Straczynski," said Marcy Ross, president of Skydance Television. Robinson will act as a consultant on the series.
The Mars Trilogy won several prestigious awards, including both the Nebula and Hugo Award. The text of Green Mars and cover art for Red Mars also got included on a DVD carried by NASA's Phoenix lander that touched down on Mars in 2008 as part of the first interplanetary library, meant for discovery by future Mars explorers.
The Red Mars television show is a straight-to-series project that will feature 10 one-hour episodes covering events in the novel of the same name. If the series is well-received, it's likely that Spike will plan on adapting the other two novels for television as well.
James Cameron once held the rights for adapting Red Mars as a mini-series, but eventually passed on the project. Since then, both Syfy and AMC made plans to produce it, but neither network followed through.
