SyFy is developing Ghost Brigades, a drama based on John Scalzi’s Hugo-nominated Old Man’s War series! Wolfgang Petersen, director of Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story will oversee the show. Jake Thornton and Ben Lustig (whose last project was the Viking Santa origin story Winter’s Knight) are writing the script. Old Man’s War, which is something of a reaction to Starship Troopers, was nominated for the Hugo in 2006. It follows John Perry, who enlists with a force called The Ghost Brigades. Perry’s advanced age is not a hindrance, because technology allows his consciousness to be placed in younger, fitter bodies…thus continuing the war.
John Scalzi has already secured an exclusive interview with himself! Check out some highlights:
Have you met [the writers]? What do you think of them?
I met them when I was in San Diego the other week. We sat around and had a nice long chat about the books and the TV series and adapting the former into the latter. They had smart things to say about the books, asked smart questions, and were generally, well, smart. I liked them. We had a good time and I think they will do a very fine job adapting the books.Why aren’t you writing the script?
Because I have other things to write, including the sequel to The Human Division.But you’re going to be involved in some way, yes?
Yes. I’ll be an executive producer on the show, and I will be having input on things.So this is the second TV show you currently have under development, yes?
That’s correct. Redshirts is currently chugging along at FX.So now that you’re an executive producer of two TV shows under development I bet you think you’re some sort of hot shot.
Yes. Yes, I do. KNEEL BEFORE ME.
You can (and should) read the rest of the interview over at Scalzi’s blog. Ghost Brigades will join Dominion, Ascension, 12 Monkeys, and The Expanse in a sci-fi-heavy line-up that we’re excited to see!
Cool. It will be interesting to see how they approach this as a continuing series.
Perry enlists in the Ghost Brigades? I don’t remember it quite going like that…
And sorry, I realize that was a bit snooty of me. FWIW, I’m excited to see this happen, as well as a lot of the other stuff SyFy seems to be currently aiming for.
This is great news. I love this series. Just finished The Last Colony and ready to start Zoe’s Tale. I’m guessing the show title and inclusion of Perry means they’ll be some meshing of books going on.
Well… I hope that the description given to the show is mostly because it’s an early announcement of the idea, and not the actual set in stone plot for it… because then it means that off the bat they will rush past book one, and change a lot of stuff from the get go.
That said, I will keep a candle burning, hoping that they do the novels justice.
SyFy can recapture me as a viewer if they do both Old Man’s War and The Expanse right.
But if they mangle and ruin the series… well, I’ll probably avoid the channel like I do nowadays.
But, I do have to say that the Old Man’s War books have a better chance of a good adaptation as a tv series than as a film (of which Scalzi vaguely hinted at), so the possibility of it being superbly awesome is there.
Here is to hope!
Glad it’s not one of SyFy’s movies. Those suck.
Their TV shows, however, tend to be good.
That’s okay DKT – I don’t recall John Perry joining The Ghost Brigade either … although he ran across them in that first book.
Wow/ SyFy is welcoming back SciFi… nice to read!
movie stuff movie
I have to admit – I’m very skeptical of this panning out. Production on this will necessarily be either hugely expensive, or ridiculous and cheesy. I just don’t see SyFy being willing to invest the money in a proper production.
Not to be a Gloomy Gus, but what TV shows has SyFy developed, as opposed to buying elsewhere?
Yeah I’m with DKT and RJB2. John isn’t a member of the Ghost Brigade. He’s a regular CDF soldier. He does work the GB at some point though.
Hope they do a good job of adapting it. The good thing about this is that the plot of these books are fairly simplistic (in comparison to GOT or LOTR ) so they should translate well to TV.
I stopped reading at Zoe’s Tale though. I couldn’t get into that story. I am not a fan of reading the same plot over again from what amounts to an inferior perspective. That sounds snooty, but it’s true.
I am cautiously optimistic about these new reports from SyFy. If the quality of the source material means that they are trying to turn their back on producing cheesy schlock, then I will be happy. But it they take these great premises, and turn them into cheesy schlock, I and a lot of fans will not be pleased.
Kirshy said “I stopped reading at Zoe’s Tale though. I couldn’t get into that story. I am not a fan of reading the same plot over again from what amounts to an inferior perspective. That sounds snooty, but it’s true.”
I felt the same way; I thought Zoe’s Tale was redundant. Do go on to read The Human Division though – it’s pretty good. Although the episodic nature of it initially being published chapter by chapter shows, and the story is obviously not over.
@11: Some SyFy TV shows:
Warehouse 13, new Battlestar G, Continuum, Lost Girl, Stargate Universe & Atlantis.
But some of the shows were handeled better than others.
Not sure if I should include Eureka on the list or not. They didn’t start with SyFy.
Lost Girl is produced by a Canadian company and SyFy has distribution rights… its not their project. Same goes for Continuum, and the Stargate shows… MGM owns them and runs the productions. SyFy pays money for US distribution rights. Battlestar was almost 10 years ago now. Warehouse 13 is not the kind of “SciFi” that the people complaining are looking for. Neither is Eureka. These are simply prcedurals with the scifi elements tacked on. They don’t effect the story at all.
On his blog, John states there was a reason they picked The Ghost Brigades for the show title rather than Old Man’s War. Check it out at the link above.
As I’m sure some of the previous comments have stated: “it doesn’t go like that”. John Perry enlists in the Colonial Defence Force at the start of the first book, and it isn’t until the end of the 1st/beginning of the 2nd book that we find out what the ‘Ghost Brigade’ is [first and foremost: a branch of the CDF that Perry is not a part of]. [If you’re reading this, you’re obviously lost on the internet]
Well? It’s 2017…