Ron Howard could pull off what Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay have failed to achieve. The director and two-time Oscar-winning producer for A Beautiful Mind has reunited with the screenwriter of the latter, Akiva Goldsman, also an Oscar winner, to develop a TV series based on Robopocalypse, the renowned science fiction novel by Daniel H. Wilson. The project, still without a network or streaming service attached, follows Spielberg and Bay’s prior attempts to bring the story to the big screen.
The Robopocalypse Plot and Other Details of the TV Series
More timely than ever, given current concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence, Robopocalypse tells of an apocalyptic war between humanity and machines, led by an autonomous and hostile artificial intelligence. The novel, made famous by Spielberg’s initiative to acquire its rights even before publication to turn it into a film, envisions a future not far off in which technology, now essential to every aspect of daily life, suddenly becomes the greatest threat to human survival. When the machines strike, humans are nearly wiped out. But as the survivors reorganize, humanity unites for the first time in a stubborn attempt to counterattack.
Howard will direct the first episode, written by Goldsman, who will also serve as showrunner for the potential series. “Robopocalypse possesses all the scope and suspense of a major action tale, but what attracted me are the themes that invite reflection and the humanity that lies at its core,” the director stated in a press release. “Daniel has imagined a future that feels both astonishing and increasingly plausible, populated by characters compelled to question what binds us to one another when the technology we rely on turns against us. I’m also excited to collaborate again with Akiva. We’ve shared meaningful creative experiences, and this feels like the right story to bring us back together.”
Besides A Beautiful Mind, Howard and Goldsman collaborated on the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code, a global hit adapted from Dan Brown’s novel of the same name. Wilson’s novel, published in 2011, has been the subject of several adaptation attempts, none of which ever reached production. After Steven Spielberg, in 2018 the project was associated with Transformers director Michael Bay, but this venture never came to fruition.
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