Twelve Monkeys Swings Back for TV Series

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[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a teenager, I never made waves with straight A-grades, nor did I become captain of the school cricket team, so the list of my finer achievements is somewhat sparse. However, one of them came in 1995 when I walked out of the cinema having been the only person in the room to ‘get’ the Terry Gilliam film Twelve Monkeys. Now, with cable network channel Syfy planning a pilot version, with a vision for a fully-fledged series, it looks like I’ll get a chance to roll back the years.
But enough about me; how did all this come about? Fresh from their success with the drama Defiance, Syfy are looking for several more originally-scripted shows. With the cult status of Twelve Monkeys assured a long time ago, how could the idea for a TV adaptation fail to make people sit up and take notice?
Now, proud as I was of myself back in the nineties purely because I’d been sitting comfortably in my local flea pit and was able to follow a storyline, there’s no way I would have wanted the job of writing the thing – as for adapting a script for the small-screen, I’d rather go 12 rounds with Bruce Willis. So, who’s been charged with this (un)enviable task? None other than Terra Nova duo Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, who have a wealth of sci-fi scribbling experience between them.
The idea for the hour-long pilot episode was successfully pitched by the producers of the original movie, Chuck Roven and Richard Suckle. So far, all the signs point towards the series following its premise; a time-traveller is sent from the future to seek and destroy the source of a plague destined to wipe out mankind. There is no news yet on who will be the stars of the show, but Roven and Suckle will act as executive producers.
It’s a long shot that Willis and Brad Pitt will return for cameos, but what’s looking far more likely is that production will begin in November.
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