George R.R. Martin’s NIGHTFLYERS Sets Sail At SyFy

TV networks are positively gagging for George R.R. Martin content. Game of Thrones may not be returning until 2019, and it's unclear when (if ever) Universal's Wild Cards adaptation will happen, but Martin now has another TV show on the cards, in the form of science fiction/horror series Nightflyers, today ordered to series by SyFy.

Nightflyers follows the crew of a science vessel travelling into interstellar space hoping to contact extraterrestrial life. But instead, they encounter horrific phenomena from within their vessel, which appears to be bent upon killing them. It’s set in Martin’s “Thousand Worlds” universe, which despite containing a thousand worlds, could not find room for Westeros.

The series’ main cast has also been locked in, with Gretchen Mol in the lead role, joined by Eoin Macken, David Ajala, Sam Strike, Maya Eshet, Angus Sampson, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Brían F. O’Byrne. Daniel Cerone (The Blacklist, Dexter, Constantine, The Mentalist) will serve as showrunner. Andrew McCarthy (the one from all of those teen movies in the ‘80s) will be a producer-director, while Another Earth’s Mike Cahill will direct the pilot. Demon Seed and Motel Hell writer Robert Jaffe will produce, with Martin as one of many executive-producers.

Martin won’t be writing on the show, however: partially due to an exclusivity deal with HBO, but also because he’s still hard at work on The Winds of Winter, which will be released... *squints at notes* ...no, that’s all it says here. Just “will be released.” Huh. Weird.

Curiously, Jaffe has already adapted Nightflyers into a feature film, back in 1987 - starring The Apple’s Catherine Mary Stewart and directed by Robert Collector, of Linda Blair prison roughie Red Heat fame. I have not seen it, but you can see the trailer right here. The voiceover tag at the end makes it all worth it.