In Bong Joon-ho’s 2014 drama Snowpiercer, the last humans on a frozen Earth live in a giant train that constantly circles the planet. Unfortunately, the train was built by a crazy rich guy who decided it would be a good idea if it had a class system, with poor people in the back and progressively wealthy people going forward. The back of the train survives on a diet of protein bars made of bugs that have been mashed up into a jelly-like substance, while the front part is an endless bacchanal. Also, the engine is powered by children, which really underlines the fact that this system is brutally unsustainable, a point that the movie highlights even further by having the train literally go off the rails after a Chris Evans-led revolt that leaves almost everyone dead.
Now, despite basically everything that happened in the movie (and the ideas they metaphorically represent), production company Tomorrow Studios has decided that Snowpiercer should be a TV show. The adaptation will be written by Josh Friedman (Sarah Connor Chronicles, the failed Locke & Key adaptation, NBC’s Crossbones), and it will apparently be “an expansive, high-concept project.” Of course, something can only be so expansive when set on a train, but maybe the Snowpiercer TV show will pad out the movie’s tight plot with some flashback episodes. Or, better yet, the studio can turn it into a procedural of some kind. That always works.