As part of a course correction that has seen Syfy attempt to shrug off the brute monkeyshines of its wrestling, reality, and weather-monster programming, and evolve into a network known for science fiction again, it’s now taking some instruction from an old, familiar monolith. The channel will soon be home to a miniseries based on 3001: The Final Odyssey, the fourth and final book in Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey series, and a TV sequel to both Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and Peter Hyams’ 2010: The Year We Make Contact movies. Producing will be Ridley Scott, who’s taking a break from tampering with his own science-fiction franchises to revisit someone else’s for a change.
With the blessing of the estates of both Kubrick and Clarke—the latter of which already had Childhood’s End in development at Syfy—the miniseries begins with the discovery of the frozen body of 2001 astronaut Frank Poole. Revived by others who cannot leave the past alone, Poole is then forced to confront all the advancements of the past 1,000 years while also dealing with their monolith, which is now—after millennia of war, atrocity, and Syfy programming—beginning to wonder whether mankind is worth saving.
The series will be scripted by Stuart Beattie, known for the Pirates Of The Caribbean series, G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, and I Frankenstein, and it promises “dark thematic meditations on the final fate of all humankind,” in which we will all eventually be reborn as Syfy movie versions of ourselves.