Cinemax is adapting a GRRM story about werewolves for TV

As the mad rush to develop and produce any and all things George R. R. Martin continues, his “offbeat werewolf-noir novella,” Skin Trade, has been optioned for TV by Cinemax, HBO’s sister company. Martin announced the deal on his Not a Blog.

"I am very excited to announce the Cinemax (HBO’s sister company) has optioned the television rights to “The Skin Trade,” the offbeat “werewolf noir” novella I penned back in the late 80s. The deal is closed, and Cinemax has ordered the pilot script. This being Hollywood, of course, you never know where things will end… but if they like the script, we’ll shoot a pilot, and if they like that, hey, who knows, maybe we’ll get a series on the air."

Screenwriter Kalinda Vazquez (Prison Break, Once Upon a Time) will pen the series pilot. Here’s a synopsis of the novella: “When a string of grotesque killings begins to strike her small city, private detective Randi Wade becomes suspicious. A serial killer is taking the skin of its victims and the grisly murders remind her all too much of her own father’s death almost twenty years ago. As the police hit a dead end, Randi goes on a search for answers of her own … But when a close friend becomes a target he is forced to reveal a startling secret about himself and Randi is quickly pulled into a dark underworld where monsters exist and prey on the living.”

It’s a blast to imagine what GRRM might do to a world full of werewolves since he hit the ball out of the park with his Stark family canis dirus (dire wolves). And for those of us concerned that this project might distract GRRM from finishing up his next A Song of Ice and Fire novel, worry not:

"And no, while I would have loved to write the script and run the show myself myself, that was never really in the cards. I have this book to finish."

Skin Trade was originally published in the 1988 Horror Anthology Night Vision 5 and won the World Fantasy Award that same year.

H/T Vanity Fair

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