Hardcore sci-fi fans should be feeling overwhelmed after the American cable channel Syfy announced that they would make a TV show based on Dan Simmons' Hugo Award-winning, bestselling Hyperion books. What's more, Hollywood actor Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, American Sniper), Academy Award winning producer Graham King (Aviator, The Departed, Argo), and Todd Phillips (The Hangover, Due Date) teamed up together as executive producers for the show.
Besides them, we only know of the screenwriter, Itamar Moses, who has worked on HBO's gangster drama Boardwalk Empire, will also serve as co-executive producer.
Since the project is in its early stages, no actors have been contacted yet.
Of course the executive producers didn't forget to praise the base material. Mr. Cooper called Hyperion as "arguably one of the greatest work of science fiction", and is really hoping that this new TV show will honor the epic of the novel.
Hyperion is set on the eve of Armageddon with the whole galaxy raging with war. The story follows the voyage of seven pilgrims, who want to to solve the riddle of their lives. While journeying together, they tell stories to each other, and soon recognise that their fate is more connected than they had imagined. Each one of them carries a terrible secret, and one may hold the fate of the human race in his hands.
Because of its frame story, Hyperion has been compared to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, only set in space.
The adaptation of Hyperion is in line with Syfy's current projects of high-profile TV shows. After successfully making a TV show out of the 1995 movie 12 Monkeys, Syfy will also air an adaption of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World with Amblin Television, Gale Anne Hurd's 13-episode thriller Hunters, David Goyer's Superman prequel Krypton, and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's futuristic espionage thriller Incorporated.
Other ongoing high-profile projects of Syfy are The Magicians and The Expanse.
With Hyperion, there's every chance that Syfy officially enters the list of cable channels that make high quality TV shows, and leaves behind its current reputation of "the channel that has yet to deliver a really epic TV show."
