Syfy Developing Two Classic Science Fiction Novels For Television

During an upfront presentation yesterday where Syfy announced an aggressive slate of new TV and movie projects, including a new series by The Walking Dead producer Gale Anne Hurd, they added to their original programming a pair of miniseries adaptations of beloved and award-winning science fiction novels. Larry Niven's Ringworld, which centers around a group of explorers who find a massive artifact orbiting a distant star, only to learn that it may have been put there by an alien race with ties to humanity's origins, is widely considered a classic of science fiction. It's also been followed up by three sequels and four prequels, meaning that should the series--being adapted by Michael Perry and planned as a four-hour miniseries--prove a success, the network has a built-in franchise. Childhood's End, meanwhile, is a novel by 2001 author Arthur C. Clarke, follows a peaceful alien invasion by a race who end all war and turn Earth into a utopian society. Stanley Kubrick was once interested in adapting the novel to the screen, but ended up working on 2001: A Space Odyssey with Clarke instead.