ANNIHILATION Author’s BORNE Universe Series Coming to AMC
Mike Sprague
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One of the best horror flicks of the past few years has been director Alex Garland’s adaptation of author Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. And today Deadline reports that AMC Studios has snatched up the rights to VanderMeer’s Borne universe novels to develop as a potential series.
The books all take place within the same mysterious, mind-bending universe. Borne was followed by The Strange Bird and Dead Astronauts which was published today.
VanderMeer will serve as an executive producer and creative consultant on the project.
He said: “I’m so excited about this partnership and working with AMC on the Borne universe. I’ve had such productive, energizing, and creative conversations with the wonderful folks involved and look forward to the road ahead.”
Ben Davis, executive vice president of programming for AMC Studios said:
“The Borne Universe is a totally unique piece of IP and Jeff has created a vivid post-apocalyptic world with enormous opportunity for a visual medium like television.”
Borne tells the story of Rachel who, surviving as a scavenger in a ruined city of the future destroyed by an evil company, discovers a mysterious creature she longs to keep despite her companion’s warnings and her own reservations.
For a more lengthy rundown, here’s how Amazon describes the book:
“In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company―a biotech firm now derelict―and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech.
One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump―plant or animal?―but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world, any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts―and definitely against Wick’s wishes―Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford.
“He was born, but I had borne him.”
But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city and to put the security of her sanctuary with Wick at risk. For the Company, it seems, may not be truly dead, and new enemies are creeping in. What Borne will lay bare to Rachel as he changes is how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets. In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same.”
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