'Westworld' Creators Making Futuristic New Drama For Amazon
The creators of HBO's "Westworld" are set to explore technology's affect on society in the future again, this time on Amazon.
Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy will produce the show, which is based on William Gibson's futuristic sci-fi novel "The Peripheral." Amazon outbid other competitors and gave the project a script-to-series order, bypassing the usual pilot process. Scott B. Smith, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of 1998's "A Simple Plan," will pen the script and produce alongside Nolan and Joy.
The thriller follows Flynne Fisher, a woman in near-future America in which technology has started to subtly alter society. She temporarily takes her brother's security job in a video game/virtual world, but Flynne soon discovers a hidden connection to a very different reality — and the dark future of her own. She witnesses what may have been a murder, which plunges her into a deep, twisting mystery.
Gibson is considered the founder of the sci-fi subgenre known as cyberpunk and coined the term "cyberspace" in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome." "The Peripheral" also has a sequel, "Agency," which will be published this month.
Nolan and Joy, of course, have had plenty of success adapting sci-fi novels into TV shows, as they did with Michael Crichton's "Westworld." The HBO drama reaped 22 Emmy nominations and was the network's most-watched freshman drama ever. The second season premieres April 22.