George R. R. Martin’s popular Wild Cards book universe, currently consisting of 27 books by varous authors, is moving from Hulu to Peacock.
Moves from one streaming service to another before a show even enters the production phase are rare, but the fact that it was possible with Wild Cards shows the Martin’s strength in the entertainment world. Martin’s magic touch comes, of course, from the wildly successful Game of Thrones series on HBO. He had originally announced that the book series was going to television back in 2016.
The Hollywood Reporter reported “following two years of development at Disney-owned Hulu, the drama based on the multiple-book series edited by the Game of Thrones creator [George R. R. Martin] has moved to NBCUniversal-backed Peacock. A search is underway for a new writer for the project, which remains in the development stage.”
Melinda Snodgrass, author of the Star Trek book Tears of the Singers, and a scriptwriter for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Reasonable Doubts, Beyond Reality, and seaQuest DSV, co-edited the Wild Card anthologies with George R. R. Martin. She will be an executive producer of the TV show. I, for one, will be very disappointed if she doesn’t write some or all of the scripts. J. Michael Straczynski showed us what a television show can be when it is the product of a single writer’s brain, rather than written by committee.
Martin, who is best known for writing Game of Thrones, explained the Wild Cards universe thusly:
“The shared world of the Wild Cards diverged from our own on September 15, 1946 when an alien virus was released in the skies over Manhattan, and spread across an unsuspecting Earth. Of those infected, 90% died horribly, drawing the black queen, 9% were twisted and deformed into jokers, while a lucky 1% became blessed with extraordinary and unpredictable powers and became aces. The world was never the same.”
The Wild Cards franchise is a shared universe of anthologies, mosaic novels and stand-alone stories written by a collection of authors and edited by Martin and Snodgrass. The book series launched after a long-running campaign of the Superworld role-playing game led by Martin and involving the original authors. Martin and Snodgrass developed the framework of the series, including the characters’ abilities and card-based terminology. The first book was published by Bantam in 1987. To date, 27 books have been released by four publishers, with other new titles in the works. The source material has been adapted as comics, graphic novels and other RPGs.
Are you looking forward to these new show? What Jokers or Aces do you hope will appear in the show? Do you have a wish list of scriptwriters, directors, SPFX technicians, or actors for the new Wild Cards show?
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Susan Macdonald is the author of the children’s book “R is for Renaissance Faire”, as well as 26 short stories, mostly fantasy in “Alternative Truths”, “Swords and Sorceress #30”, Swords &Sorceries Vols. 1, 2, & 5, “Cat Tails” “Under Western Stars”, and “Knee-High Drummond and the Durango Kid”. Her articles have appeared on SCIFI.radio’s web site, in The Inquisitr, and in The Millington Star. She enjoys Renaissance Faires (see book above), science fiction conventions, Highland Games, and Native American pow-wows.
