Rescuing a viewing audience that was floating adrift with nothing familiar to latch onto, here in these dark, 24 hours without the announcement of another reboot, Legendary has begun development on a TV reboot of Lost In Space. At the helm of this refurbished vessel are two of Hollywood’s hottest story re-tellers, Dracula Untold writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who continue to imagine new and exciting ways in which classic stories could also have their names on them.
In this case, it’s Irwin Allen’s 1960s TV series, which was itself based on Allen’s concept of a Space Family Robinson that could have his name on it, which was in turn based on a Swiss Family Robinson that could have comic writer Del Connell’s name on it. The new Lost In Space series will therefore be a remake of an adaptation of an adaptation, which we believe means everything cancels each other out and technically makes it an original idea again.
The first Lost In Space series, which accurately captured the era of scientific advancement and space exploration that was 1997, ran for three seasons on CBS, during which time it changed from a drama about a family marooned on an alien planet with a villainous saboteur, to a campy comedy where a bumbling fop argues with a little boy and his robot. It’s unknown yet which version this new show will model itself after—though the relentlessly dour Dracula Untold certainly suggests “camp” will be avoided, at least intentionally.
It’s also unknown whether those specific characters will be revived, though that was (more or less) the case for the last two remakes, the 1998 feature film version and a 2003 pilot directed by John Woo. The former had Gary Oldman turn into a giant spider, seemingly negating any need to reboot Lost In The Space—or indeed, film anything at all—ever again. And yet, here we are.
The Lost In Space reboot joins a line of other movie and TV reboots announced in recent weeks that I won’t recount because it’s goddamn long and tiring.