This was almost a given after the success of Game of Thrones, but where it’s ended up is a bit of a surprise. SyFy Films, the company that is essentially the bonding between the SyFy channel and Universal Pictures, has acquired the rights to bring Wild Cards to the big screen. The company was created back in 2010 and has had little to be said at this point, but this is the big noteworthy project that will get their names out there. The movie is based off of the anthology novels that began back in 1987 with many writers contributing under Martin’s direction and one of the co-creators/co-writers, Melinda Snodgrass, has signed on to write the screenplay while both she and Martin will serve as executive producers.
“One of the things we have going is the sense of history,” he says. “The comics in the mainstream are doing retcons [retroactive continuity] all the time. [Heroes] get married, then one day, the publisher changes his mind, and then they’re no longer married. To my mind, it’s very frustrating. [Our stories] are in real time. It’s a world that is changing in parallel to our own.”
“This is, beyond Marvel and DC, really the only universe where you have fully realized, fully integrated characters that have been built and developed over the course of 25 years,” says Gregory Noveck, Syfy Films’ senior vp production who joined the division in May and who targeted the books for acquisition. “The trick for us is to find what’s the best movie.”
“We hope this is the first of a long presence in film and perhaps even television down the line,” Martin also added.
Novel concept: Wild Cards is a series of books and stories set in a shared universe where an alien virus has been unleashed over New York City. Those who survived were turned into either a class of beings named Jokers, mostly deformed creatures, (or more rarely) Aces, who have special powers. Contributors to the series include Roger Zelazny, Lewis Shiner, Walter Jon Williams, Pat Cadigan, Howard Waldrop, Leanne C. Harper, Chris Claremont, Victor Milán, John J. Miller, and Martin himself.
[Source: The Hollywood Reporter]
