Disney+ has started development on a live-action television series based on the 1933 King Kong movie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show will deliver a “serialized adventure story that will return to Skull Island, exploring the mythology and mystery of Kong’s home”. It will not be tied to the Monsterverse franchise from Legendary Entertainment which ties Kong into the Godzilla universe. The Disney+ show will be written by Stephany Folsom (Paper Girls) with James Wan (Aquaman) onboard as executive producer. It is early in the development stage at this point and could be a couple of years away from making it to the small screen.
Netflix has yet another Korean drama in the works as it plans on adapting Hitoshi Iwaaki’s popular manga series Parasyte: The Grey as a live-action series. Deadline gives the following description of the project:
The story sees a group of humans wage war against the rising evil of unidentified parasitic life-forms that live off of human hosts and strive to grow their power.
Jeon So-nee plays Jeong Su-in who falls victim to a parasite; when it fails to take over her brain, she enters a bizarre coexistence with it.
The manga series, which originally ran from 1988 to 1995, has previously had animated and live-action adaptations. The Netflix series will likely premiere at some point in 2023.
Steve Blackman, showrunner for The Umbrella Acaemy, has two new shows in development as part of his overall deal with Netflix. The video game-based Horizon Zero Dawn and ISS drama Orbital are both currently in the works at the streamer. Deadline gives the following description for the projects:
Horizon Zero Dawn is an epic sci-fi adventure series set a thousand years in the future, in a strange and beautiful world full of primitive tribes and high-tech machines, all built on the bones of the ‘Old Ones’ – the ruins of our present-day United States. The disaster that destroyed our world is long forgotten, but when these formerly peaceful machines mysteriously turn into dangerous hunters of all life, a young outcast named Aloy discovers that the only chance to save her world is to fight to uncover what happened to ours. First released in 2017 Horizon Zero Dawn has sold over 20 million copies globally across PlayStation 4 and PC. (*as of Nov. 28th 2021)
A thriller event series set on the International Space Station, Orbital is an original concept by writers David & Keith Lynch, who will co-create the series with Steve Blackman and direct an episode.
Both shows will likely be targeting a late 2023 or early 2024 premiere as Blackman will be busy with the final season of The Umbrella Academy.
SciFiTVSite.com: Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and keep up with what is airing/streaming each week with our Weekly Listings.
CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the status updates of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Cancellation Watch posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
