Director Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean) is set to helm a feature film adaptation of George R.R. Martin‘s 1979 novelette Sandkings which is currently in the works at Netflix. Utopia creator Dennis Kelly is also on board to help develop it as the writer.
Verbinski revealed the news himself after being asked what he was currently working on during an interview with Collider saying, “one of the screenplays is based on a George R.R. Martin short story called Sandkings, which is this brilliant little twisted short story that I love. And I’m working with a great writer, Dennis Kelly, who wrote the original [Utopia]… The British original series is brilliant. And Dennis is doing the adaptation, so I’m kind of excited about that.”
Verbinski didn’t offer any other details on the project, but here are some details on the story, which follows a wealthy playboy named Simon Kress who collects dangerous, exotic animals.
One day, he stumbles across a mysterious establishment called Wo & Shade, where he purchases a terrarium filled with four colonies of creatures called sandkings, which grow to fill whatever environment they are kept in. Each colony consists of a large female called the maw, and numerous insect-like mobiles that she controls via telepathy. In addition to finding food for the maw, the mobiles also construct a sandcastle around her to protect the maw from invading colonies.
Indeed, the four colonies — white, black, red and orange — often engage in coordinated wars with one another, especially once their new owner makes them fight over food by starving them. Simon begins taking bets on the outcomes of these wars, which leave some of his friends impressed, and others disgusted. Eventually, the sandkings escape Simon’s terrarium and begin to take over his house as their hunger — and Simon’s desperation — intensifies.
Sandkings won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and it was previously adapted in 1995 as a TV movie that starred Beau Bridges. It ultimately ended up being the first episode of The Outer Limits revival. The story was also adapted into a graphic novel in 1987 by DC Comics, writer Doug Moench and artists Pat Broderick and Neal McPheeters.
This is sure to be a great film project for Verbinski to direct. It sounds like it has the potential to be an awesome movie. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the films that Verbinski has made over the course of his career and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what he does with Sandkings.