Yet another Octavia Butler adaptation is in the works. The late and great beloved sci-fi writer is finally getting the kudos she deserves in the film and TV world. Variety reports that HBO has ordered a pilot script based on “Fledgling,” Butler’s 2005 vampire novel. The project adds to the list of Butler-inspired projects in the pipeline.
Hailing from Emmy-nominated “Lovecraft Country” writers and co-executive producers Sonya Winton-Odamtten and Jonathan I. Kidd, “Fledgling” counts “Insecure” creator and star Issa Rae among its exec producers.
“Fledgling” tells the story of an “apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly inhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted – and still wants – to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself.”
Winton-Odamtten and Kidd are under an overall deal with HBO. The collaborators are also developing “Say Their Names,” a limited series “based on human rights journalist and activist Margaret Prescod’s relentless pursuit of justice in the ‘Grim Sleeper’ murders in Los Angeles, which led to the founding of The Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders,” the source details.
“Zola” writer-director Janicza Bravo was recently tapped to helm an FX pilot based on “Kindred,” Butler’s 1979 novel about a young Black woman and aspiring writer who keeps being pulled back and forth between the present and the days of 19th-century slavery. Oscar-nominated “Time” director Garrett Bradley is helming a feature adaptation of Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” a story about a teen who must save humanity from extinction, for A24.
Longer-gestating Butler adaptations in the works include an Amazon series based on “Dawn” from Victoria Mahoney and Ava DuVernay and an Amazon series inspired by “Wild Seed” from Viola Davis.
The recipient of two Nebula awards and two Hugo awards, Butler died in 2006.
