Universal Cable Productions Acquires Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin and Plans Event Series
Steve Barton
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Universal Cable Productions has acquired the rights to the Hugo Award winning, best-selling science fiction novel Spin by Robert Charles Wilson with the goal of developing it into an event TV series. Read on for the details.
The deal marks one of the first project commitments under Dawn Olmstead, who recently joined Universal Cable Productions as Executive Vice President, Development, and underscores the caliber of genre content and compelling stories in development.
Additionally, the studio has signed Bits and Pieces Pictures’ Rob Morrow (“Northern Exposure,” Quiz Show) and Olympus Pictures’ Leslie Urdang (Beginners, Rabbit Hole) to produce, rounding out its growing slate of powerhouse auspices.
“Spin is beloved in the sci-fi world for its dynamic characters and engaging storylines. We’re excited to bring this masterpiece to life with Rob Morrow and the team at Olympus Pictures,” said Olmstead.
Spin follows three childhood friends who, while playing one night, witness the stars in the sky mysteriously vanish. NASA probes reveal a black energy barrier has surrounded the earth and time is traveling a billion times faster outside of the barrier. Civilization learns that it has a limited time left before the sun expands and consumes the planet. As the children grow, they go their separate ways trying to save the world from annihilation, but with time running out, will their friendship and mankind survive?
“I picked up Spin as a holiday read with the notion of reading something for pleasure and instantly knew it had epic zeitgeist appeal,” said Morrow. “This is a giant fascinating ride that is wholly entertaining, portentous, and will speak to all generations worldwide. I’m thrilled to team up with friend Leslie Urdang and everyone at Universal Cable Productions.”
Look for more soon!
Book Synopsis:
One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.
The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk—a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world’s artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they’d been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, a space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside—more than a hundred million years per year on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future.
Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who’s forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses.
Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans… and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth’s probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun—and report back on what they find.
Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.
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