David Cronenberg’s 1981 sci-fi thriller Scanners (watch it HERE) kicked off a franchise that consists of four follow-ups: Scanners II: The New Order, Scanners III: The Takeover, Scanner Cop, and Scanners: The Showdown (a.k.a. Scanner Cop II: The Showdown). The franchise has been dormant for twenty-seven years now, but not for lack of trying. For the last fifteen years, there has been talk of Scanners being revived by either a remake from the likes of Darren Lynn Bousman and David S. Goyer or a television series that at one time had Alexandre Aja attached. Now, after a long time in development hell, it looks like the TV series option is finally going to happen. Without the involvement of Bousman, Goyer, or Aja.
The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that the Scanners series is now set up at HBO, with Yann Demange, who directed the pilot episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country, set to direct the pilot for this one, working from a script by showrunner William Bridges. Brides previously who won an Emmy for co-writing the USS Callister episode of the anthology series Black Mirror.
A co-production between HBO, Media Res Studio, and Wayward Films, Scanners is being executive produced by Bridges and Demange, along with Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer of Media Res Studio, Meredith Duff and Sarah Sullivan of Wayward Films, René and Fanny-Laure Malo, Pierre David, Clark Peterson, Aaron Gilbert, and Cronenberg.
The Hollywood Reporter reminds that Cronenberg’s Scanners told the story of “a small group of super-powered people with a range of psychic, telepathic and telekenetic power. One faction of scanners, as these people were labeled, were led by a power-mad man named Revok, played by Michael Ironside, who aims to take over the world, while a private security firm recruits its own scanners to stop him for its own, possibly shady, reasons.”
HBO’s Scanners series is described as a “visceral thriller set in the mind-bending world of Cronenberg’s film”. The show will center on
two women living on the fringes of modern society who are pursued by relentless agents with unimaginable powers and thus must learn to work together to topple a vast conspiracy determined to bring them to heel.
Are you a fan of the Scanners franchise, and are you glad to hear there’s going to be an HBO series? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.