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The Expanse optioned for Television Series


Brandon Stark

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Meanwhile, Alcon Television Group has acquired the rights to James S.A. Corey's New York Times bestselling series "The Expanse" to develop as a TV series.

The hour-long drama will center around a high stakes conspiracy and cover up of humanity’s first discovery of alien life.

Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby ("Iron Man," "Children Of Men") will write the pilot and executive produce alongside Sean Daniel and Jason Brown.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/28463/-husband-s-secret-expanse-get-adapted

As with anything these days, I'd say the network it lands on is everything (on the off chance it progesses to production).

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seems like a bad idea. i guess it could work but the expanse to me seems almost perfect for movie franchise. in terms of plot length, and budget considerations, i think it fits awkwardly into a television format

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The other issue with the Expanse Saga is that you'd have to do some fairly intense CGI to be able do the Belters (and to a degree the Martians) justice. We're talking body manipulation along the lines of what they did in Captain America, because they'll have to stretch out people's body proportions. That's technology that was cutting edge only a few years ago - will it be available now (or at the time the show actually gets made, anyway) at a cheap enough price that it will fit into a TV show's budget?

ST

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I'll just paste what I said in the "what sci-fi do you want" thread.

That would be very cool to get an expanse show. I think the correct casting could make belters work. I mean Lance Reddick could be a belter already given his physique. More problematic would be the fact that gravity is actually an issue in the show and that seems to be anathema in TV/film. Hopefully they can keep it for short segments when essential and we'd just have to go with them always accelerating at earth g.

Blood zombies could also be expensive but I can imagine that being a key part to the TV pilot being made.

It would be Great for Daniel and Ty to make a ton of money off it and finally get some deserved exposure from it.

with the additional - I really didn't envisage the belters looking so different they were impossible to exist on Earth. I just thougt they were tall and thin. Obviously, that's what they'd have to do for TV as it would be too costly to do super deformed people. That reminds me of the phantom 2040 space characters.

I agree that network choice is key. You'd think it would have to be a cable channel. Maybe AMC would take the risk but on the other hand maybe GRRM could put a word in at HBO. There'd need to be more sex if it went to HBO.

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Iwith the additional - I really didn't envisage the belters looking so different they were impossible to exist on Earth. I just thougt they were tall and thin. Obviously, that's what they'd have to do for TV as it would be too costly to do super deformed people. That reminds me of the phantom 2040 space characters.

I'm sure I remember a lot of references to how the Belters would never be able to go down to Earth because they would be unable to withstand the gravity, so they must be reasonably different (although you can probably handwave that to a degree by implying that the limiting factor is some kind of internal, invisible physiological reason).

But apart from that, a fair amount of the social commentary in the books revolves around how easy and obvious it is to distinguish an Earther from a Martian from a Belter. To make it work, there would have to be enough difference in their physiques to make that distinction. It needs to be visible and uniform across the cast to be an identifying trait. I'm know they can do a lot with makeup/camera angles, but this just seems like something that's slightly beyond the capabilities of the camera itself. That's what makes me think they'll need some CGI to get it right.

ST

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I'm sure I remember a lot of references to how the Belters would never be able to go down to Earth because they would be unable to withstand the gravity, so they must be reasonably different (although you can probably handwave that to a degree by implying that the limiting factor is some kind of internal, invisible physiological reason).

But apart from that, a fair amount of the social commentary in the books revolves around how easy and obvious it is to distinguish an Earther from a Martian from a Belter. To make it work, there would have to be enough difference in their physiques to make that distinction. It needs to be visible and uniform across the cast to be an identifying trait. I'm know they can do a lot with makeup/camera angles, but this just seems like something that's slightly beyond the capabilities of the camera itself. That's what makes me think they'll need some CGI to get it right.

ST

I think the , not being able to live on Earth could just be a case of their bones/musculature not being able to cope. I can't remember what kind of g they tend to use most of the time in the books (I guess it varies from place to place) but most of the time it can't be that of Earth, otherwise belters wouldn't function on any ships or large stations with artificial gravity.

Like I said, I think you can get around it by picking lanky cast members uniformly. There's other ways to cheat as well with them having a certain dress code (to accentuate the different body shape) or make facial features pointier. The other thing to remember is that people are very good at spotting differences to give themselves tribal identity so in the book belters and earthers are probably used to spotting differences so they don't have to be too extreme. A bit like how you can make a good guess as to whether a european is scandinavian based on height/hair colour. But casting will be very important for all the different groups. You can make the belters look more extreme by having the earthers be shorter/stockier. Then there's language as well - recall the martians had a different dialect to earth and belters.

CGI would be far too expensive to do with belters being a regular part of the cast and I wouldn't want those characters to be CG. If they were to do that they'd be better making the whole thing CGI which I'm pretty sure won't happen for a US TV show not aimed at kids.

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I think the , not being able to live on Earth could just be a case of their bones/musculature not being able to cope. I can't remember what kind of g they tend to use most of the time in the books (I guess it varies from place to place) but most of the time it can't be that of Earth, otherwise belters wouldn't function on any ships or large stations with artificial gravity.

Like I said, I think you can get around it by picking lanky cast members uniformly. There's other ways to cheat as well with them having a certain dress code (to accentuate the different body shape) or make facial features pointier. The other thing to remember is that people are very good at spotting differences to give themselves tribal identity so in the book belters and earthers are probably used to spotting differences so they don't have to be too extreme. A bit like how you can make a good guess as to whether a european is scandinavian based on height/hair colour. But casting will be very important for all the different groups. You can make the belters look more extreme by having the earthers be shorter/stockier. Then there's language as well - recall the martians had a different dialect to earth and belters.

CGI would be far too expensive to do with belters being a regular part of the cast and I wouldn't want those characters to be CG. If they were to do that they'd be better making the whole thing CGI which I'm pretty sure won't happen for a US TV show not aimed at kids.

It's not inconceivable to do it all with casting, it's just that I don't think that's a good idea. You're significantly limiting your talent pool if you go down that route. For an individual role or two it's fine, but when you have to cast a significant fraction of the cast that way it starts to become a bit of burden. Especially since 'lankiness' and 'stockiness' are not archetypes for which there will be a lot of actors at the drop of a hat. It's a good point about using shorter baseline actors to make everyone else look taller, but it runs the risk of weirding people out if everyone from the "normal" place looks short and fat. That's probably the sort of thing that can be magicked away with camera tricks though, I suppose. Provided there is a clear difference that is visible and obvious - you're not going to get the same effect if the characters can instantaneously tell the races apart but the audience can't. I don't think minor differences will cut it.

ST

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It's not inconceivable to do it all with casting, it's just that I don't think that's a good idea. You're significantly limiting your talent pool if you go down that route. For an individual role or two it's fine, but when you have to cast a significant fraction of the cast that way it starts to become a bit of burden. Especially since 'lankiness' and 'stockiness' are not archetypes for which there will be a lot of actors at the drop of a hat. It's a good point about using shorter baseline actors to make everyone else look taller, but it runs the risk of weirding people out if everyone from the "normal" place looks short and fat. That's probably the sort of thing that can be magicked away with camera tricks though, I suppose. Provided there is a clear difference that is visible and obvious - you're not going to get the same effect if the characters can instantaneously tell the races apart but the audience can't. I don't think minor differences will cut it.

ST

They really need to avoid the extreme of Dwarves vs elves vs humans levels of difference. They need to find an in-between which is where i think the clothing department is going to be vital. A single person can look very different depending on what they wear and I think this will help accentuate the different "races". I think people will get used to it - if the show is aimed at an audience willing to make an effort they will be fine. It took me half a season to work out who all the cops and criminals were in "the wire" and "Deadwood" but I'm pleased they didn't go the route of making everyone stand out like a sore thumb.

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IIRC weren't the belters biggest differentness longer neck/heads which made the head shape less round? So much so that most of them wouldn't be mistaken for some one from Earth, or even Mars?

If that is the case then prosthetics/hair cut for the belters should work. I guess you'd have to select actors with long-ish necks but this could also be accentuated with clothing. I'd be very interested in the casting for Holden's crewmate who is a belter.

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If that is the case then prosthetics/hair cut for the belters should work. I guess you'd have to select actors with long-ish necks but this could also be accentuated with clothing. I'd be very interested in the casting for Holden's crewmate who is a belter.

the GF or the mechanic? The other pilot/com guy was also from Earth.
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the GF or the mechanic? The other pilot/com guy was also from Earth.

The girlfriend - I'm terrible with names and can only remember Holden's at the moment.

I'd love to see who gets to play the old grandma politician if they folllow the books. She's a great character and will work excellently on screen.

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After I got a few posts into this thread, I stopped reading because I thought it was heading toward spoiler territory. I've only read the first book of The Expanse so far, so if this is going to be a thread that spoils things in the books, it should probably reflect that in the thread title, or use spoiler tags when discussing events in the books that could be spoilers.

Thanks!

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The pilot (Alex) is from Mars, ethnic Indian with a Texan drawl. The XO (Naomi) is a belter, I picture her as Janet mock. Mechanic (Amos) is from Baltimore, not sure but I think white, Holden is from a farm in Montana and given his parentage could be anything.

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  • 7 months later...

Syfy has ordered The Expanse straight to series with a 10 episode order. Will edit for link soon [it takes forever to post links on this machine.] Booyah! There will be time for long fan screeds later worrying about the whole Syfy thing I'm sure, but for now this is awesome! Space opera on tv again!



I originally found the news on Deadline, but the Deadline link is borked for some reason, so let's try io9:



http://io9.com/syfy-is-turning-james-s-a-coreys-books-into-game-of-t-1562411885


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Yeah, but they've produced a lot more coal than they have diamonds. I'd be a much more optimistic had this been picked up by HBO or AMC or something. That being said, I will watch it. Loved the books, and I hope they do it justice.

Great source material, Academy Award-nominated screenwriters, new VP at SyFy wanting to get back to quality programing, and the fact that they ordered 10 episodes and didn't even try to stretch it to 13 let alone 22 doesn't have me worried. It might be bad, but I'm not going to worry until I see the actual product. Their last show set in space was pretty awesome too (SG:U).

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