George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards Being Adapted for Television

Posted on August 8, 2016

George R.R. Martin announced today that another of his popular book series is coming to television. The people that brought us Mr. Robot, 12 Monkeys, Colony, and Suits, Universal Cable Productions (UCP), has purchased the rights to adapt Martin's long-running Wild Cards series for television. Because Martin has an exclusive development deal with HBO, the series will be developed by Martin's assistant editor Melinda M. Snodgrass, who is also an experienced television writer and producer for such shows as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Profiler, and Gregory Novak.

Wild Cards is set in an alternate history from our own. The timelines are the same up until September 15, 1946, when the Wild Cards world was hit with an alien virus which was released over Manhattan. The virus spread around the globe, killing 90% of those who were infected. Those people were said to have drawn the Black Queen. Nine percent of those infected were deformed into Jokers, and a lucky 1% became Aces. The Aces were gifted with amazing and unpredictable powers.

The first volume of the superhero anthology series, Wild Cards I, was published in 1986. There have been 22 volumes published since then with number 23 hitting stores in hardcover this month, if you want to catch up before the series airs in a year or two. The first volume nearly won the Hugo Award, but lost out to Watchmen by Alan Moore.

Martin explained, "Wild Cards is a series of books, graphic novels, games... but most of all it is a universe, as large and diverse and exciting as the comic book universes of Marvel and DC (though somewhat grittier, and considerably more realistic and more consistent), with an enormous cast of characters both major and minor. There are thousands of stories to be told in the world of the Wild Cards, and Gregory and Melinda and UPC hope to be able to tell many of them." Martin also noted that he won't be working on the project due to his deal with HBO. Instead he is spending his time writing Winds of Winter.