Matt Reeves (‘The Batman’) and his 6th & Idaho production studio have landed the rights to produce a movie adaptation of Clifford D. Simak’s Hugo Award-winning novel ‘Way Station’ for Netflix. A writer is currently being sought to handle the screenplay. Reeves and 6th & Idaho have a first-look deal with Netflix, and are currently developing ‘Animal Farm’, ‘Button Man’, ‘Idol’, and ‘Recursion’.
For more than 100 years Enoch Wallace has been the keeper of a Way Station on Earth for intergalactic alien travelers as they teleport across the universe. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race.
‘Way Station’ was originally published under the name ‘Here Gather the Stars’ in two parts in ‘Galaxy Magazine’ in 1963, and was honored with the Hugo Award the following year, after it had been released as ‘Way Station’ in novel form.
In the novel, Enoch Wallace is a Civil War veteran and is kept alive for over a hundred years, due to this position. But he government becomes suspicious and begins spying on him, during the time of UFO paranoia of the 1950s-60s. Like many great science fiction works of that period, this story is used as an allegory for the Cold War, and addresses themes of peace and war from a science fiction perspective.
A television adaptation was previously in development with Revelstone Entertainment in 2004, but obviously that never came to pass.
This is a stand-alone story, so this will probably be a stand-alone movie. Probably. But if there’s one thing that Hollywood seems to excel at, it’s milking properties for everything they’re worth. And this is Netflix we’re talking about. The service that just ordered a fourth season of ’13 Reasons Why’.
Have you read ‘Way Station’? Are you excited at the thought of a film adaptation?
Source: Deadline
