Netflix Hires The Wachowskis To Produce Original Sci-Fi Series SENSE8

David Fincher's House of Cards proved to be a risk worth taking for Netflix's original programming department, and now they're all in with Sense8, a sci-fi thriller produced by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, along with a little known pair of directors you might have heard of, oh just the freaking Wachowskis!!

From the press release:

"We've wanted to work with Joe Straczynski for years, chiefly due to the fact his name is harder to pronounce than ours, but also because we share a love of genre and all things nerdy," said Andy and Lana Wachowski. "Several years ago, we had a late night conversation about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us, and out of that paradox Sense8 was born."

I think the Wachowskis are wonderful collaborators, and it's cool that they've been talking about this project for years with Straczynski. The press release doesn't say much more about Sense8's premise, other than it's "a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted" and, according to Motion Picture Capital's Leon Clarance, "a brilliant concept, which will be a wonderful story to produce, and a rich conceptual world for viewers to experience."

So yeah, not much info. But what else do you need to know? It's an original sci-fi thriller series from the Wachowskis! I've never seen Babylon 5, Crusade or Jeremiah, the shows created by Straczynski, but I trust their taste in collaborators, and he's written and produced so much television that it makes sense for the cinema-centric directors to work with a small screen expert.

Season One will be ten episodes and it launches late 2014, not long after their film Jupiter Ascending (with Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum) hits theaters. I'm dying to see the Wachowskis tackle TV, and Netflix's anything-goes approach seems like the best way for them to do that.