Westworld producers making a show based on Michael Crichton’s Sphere at HBO

Some of the folks behind Westworld are adapting another Michael Crichton novel: the water-logged Sphere, which was a failed movie in 1998.

Michael Crichton wrote a lot of novels that were turned into successful movies and TV shows. Jurassic Park is the most obvious. HBO had a big hit with its adaptation of Westworld. In 1998, Barry Levinson adapted his novel Sphere, about a group of scientists who find an alien spacecraft while working in an undersea facility. It bombed, but there’s always room for second chances, right?

HBO seems to think so. Westworld writer and executive producer Denise Thé will serve as showrunner on a new series based on the novel, with Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy also on board as executive producers. So is Robert Downey Jr, oddly enough.

“Sphere plunges us one thousand feet into the ocean, where a group of scientists confronts the surreal, beautiful, and deadly mysteries of the universe, only to find the people closest to us may prove to be the most alien,” reads the synopsis. Sounds interesting, although you hope that HBO has a better angle on the material than Levinson did in the ’90s.

While some networks seem to be cutting back on expensive sci-fi and fantasy shows in the age of the coronavirus, HBO is barreling forward, not just with Sphere but with a new horror series based on the Hellraiser franchise. There’s no release date for either of those shows yet, but it’s good to know there’s stuff out there.

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h/t Entertainment Weekly