FX Orders Pilot for Y: The Last Man
The long-in-the-works adaptation of the Y: The Last Man comic book seres, created by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra has taken a step forward at FX. The network has ordered a pilot for the series to be titled simply Y. Michael Green has had this in the works at FX for a while, but has been busy with other projects which has slowed development. The story follows the last man on Earth on a planet now filled with women after all animals with a Y chromosome suddenly die. Green has written the pilot and will serve as showrunner should the it go to series. I expect that FX will be targeting this for their 2019 schedule.
Neil Gaiman to Helm Gormenghast TV Adaptation
FremantleMedia North America has secured the rights to the Gormenghast fantasy book series by Mervyn Peake and Neil Gaiman will be helming the adaptation along with Akiva Goldsman. Deadline Hollywood gives the following description for the story:
The books follow the inhabitants of Castle Gormenghast, a sprawling, decaying, gothic-like structure with a raft of characters including Titus, the heir to the throne of the House of Groan, scheming kitchen boy Steerpike and twin sisters Cora and Clarice.
The first two books were previously adapted by the BBC in 2000 with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Christopher Lee in starring roles. Gaiman has long wanted to adapt this series, and this will give television yet another epic fantasy story along with Game of Thrones, The Kingkiller Chronicles, the Lord of the Rings prequel, and more.
Sci Fi TV Status Report: The CW Renews The Flash, Black Lightning, Supernatural, and Pretty Much Everything
The CW made us wait a little longer than usual this year, but the result is the same as the network has announced renewals for all of its Fall genre shows–The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Supernatural, and Riverdale–along with mid-season entry Black Lightning. The last few years, that network seemed very eager to make its renewal announcements, usually getting them out in January or February. This year took a little longer, but none of the renewals came as a surprise. I have had almost all of those shows at Renewal Likely status for a while and would have been surprised with anything less than the blanket renewal announcement. The Arrow-verse shows (including tangential entry Black Lightning) have remained among the network’s best performers, and Supernatural is holding strong in its thirteenth year. The linear viewing for Riverdale is lower than most of the networks other genre entries, but it regularly places in the Weekly Nielsen Social Net Top 10 and also performs very well in encore viewings on Netflix. I have theorized that a shake-up could be coming to the Arrow-verse in the near future due to audience attrition, but that would not impact those shows until next season at the earliest as confirmed by the renewals. iZombie and The 100 have not received renewal nods yet, but stay tuned to CancelledSciFi.com for announcements on those and more as the season winds down.
Sci Fi TV Schedule: Premieres for The Expanse, Lost in Space, and More Next Week
This coming week brings three more premieres, two returning shows and one new entry. Returning is Syfy’s The Expanse which has its third season debut at 9 PM EST on Wednesday along with AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead which is back for its fourth year (with Lennie James joining the cast of that show) on Sunday after the TWD season finale. For new shows, Netflix’s reboot of Lost in Space bows on Friday with all episodes of that series available for streaming that day. Two shows have their season finales next week, The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow on Monday and the previously mentioned The Walking Dead on Sunday. And The CW’s The Flash will be back with new episodes after taking several weeks off. You can see the full Spring schedule of sci fi and fantasy shows at this link and you can keep up with the weekly listings at this link.
More Sci Fi TV News
HBO’s Adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 debuts on May 19th. Above is the latest trailer for that.
Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings Prequel series has a five season commitment and $1 billion budget and will use “use material from the films”.
The CW’s returning series The Originals will shift to Wednesdays at 9 PM EST (previously scheduled for Fridays) and will have the premiere for its final season on April 18th.
