Hand drawn animation company Last Studio Standing has announced that it has picked up the rights to William Gibson’s sci-fi masterpiece Hinterlands and is developing a theatrical film and subsequent 100 episode TV series based upon the property.
In Hinterlands, a Russian space mission vanishes in mid-flight to Mars and reappears two years later. When a rescue mission reaches the ship, they find the cosmonaut dead but a seashell grasped in her hand. What follows is the discovery of a passage to another place, where the technology isn’t necessarily more advanced but just very different from our Universe. All future missions fail to bring back any digital data, only handwritten notes survive, and the crews come back dead or insane. This sets the stage for an intense mystery of what lies on the other side.
“It is such a great story,” says Jonathan Kitzen, CEO of Last Studio Standing. “We know we can do more with it because animation is an all-powerful tool that can create anything. We plan on making something that looks like Gravity mixed with Blade Runner, and this story offers us a huge pallet of possibilities, for about $100 million less than a traditional live action film. We want this to appeal to the hard core sci-fi lovers and we will not treat the audience as idiots.”
Hinterlands will begin with a pilot that is intended for theatrical release, and will pave the way for the subsequent TV series, as well as potential spinoff series.
Originally published June 30, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
