George R.R. Martin is best known for the fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, which was made into Game of Thrones on HBO.
However, that isn’t all he has written over his career.
In 1979, Martin wrote the novella Sandkings for an issue of Omni. He won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and Locus Award for Best Novelette, and now fans can see it come to life on the small screen.
George R.R. Martin’s Sandkings coming to Netflix
Director Gore Verbinski was speaking to Collider recently and said that he is bringing Sandkings to Netflix.
Verbinski is an accomplished filmmaker who has made everything from the original The Ring to the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy to the animated hit Rango. Now, he gets to bring a George R.R. Martin story to life.
Sandkings is set in the same overall world as other Martin stories, including Nighttflyers, which was made into a single-season series for SyFy.
In Sandkings, Simon Kress is a collector of exotic animals, but after a long trip off planet, he returns to find almost all of them died while he was gone. He then sets out to find some new pets and learns of a rare animal known as sandkings.
The man explains that these are not just small insects, but are highly intelligent animals with a highly-evolved hive intelligence capable of staging wars between the different colors, and even religion in the form of worship of their owner.
However, when Simon doesn’t heed the warnings about when he needs to feed them, things get out of control and it all ends with a shocking conclusion.
George R.R. Martin called Sandkings “the most successful thing I ever wrote until I began Game of Thrones.”
Gore Verbinski talks Sandkings
In the interview, Verbinski talked about taking on the classic George R.R. Martin story.
“One of the screenplays is based on a George R.R. Martin short story called Sandkings, which is this brilliant little twisted short story that I love,” Verbinski said.
He added, “And I’m working with a great writer, Dennis Kelly, who wrote the original [Utopia]… The British original series is brilliant. And Dennis is doing the adaptation, so I’m kind of excited about that.”
John Baldecchi will produce the adaptation. He also worked with Verbinski on The Mexican.
This also isn’t the first time Sandkings was adapted. In the ’90s, The Outer Limits released a version of the story for the series.