EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Prime Video is growing Wild Seed, a drama collection primarily based on the primary e-book in Octavia E. Butler’s acclaimed Patternist sci-fi collection, from Viola Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions.
Co-written by award-winning sci-fi novelist Nnedi Okorafor and Rafiki filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu who is about to direct, Wild Seed is a love (and hate) story of two African immortals who journey the ages from pre-Colonial West Africa to the far, far future. Doro, a killer who makes use of his energy to breed individuals like livestock, encounters Anyanwu, a healer who forces him to reassess his millennia of merciless habits: for hundreds of years, their private battles change the course of our world as they battle in opposition to the backdrop of time — grasp vs slave, man vs girl, killer vs healer.
Davis, Tennon and Andrew Wang, JuVee’s head of tv improvement, government produce with Kahiu, Okorafor, together with Ernestine Walker and Merrilee Heifetz with the Octavia E. Butler property.
Wild Seed was the primary tome chronologically and third to be printed within the five-book Patternmaster collection from Science Fiction Hall of Famer Butler, who died in 2006 on the age of 58.
“Wild Seed is a e-book that shifted my life,” mentioned Davis. “It is as epic, as game changing, as moving and brilliant as any Science Fiction novel ever written. Julius and I are proud to have this masterpiece in our hands. It fullfills our promise and legacy to be disrupters. Octavia Butler was a visionary and we look forward to honoring the scope of her work and sharing it with the world.”
JuVee had pursued the rights to the e-book for over two years, but it surely wasn’t till they recognized rising expertise Kahiu, who was tapped to direct in addition to write the pilot along with her pal and colleague Okorafor, that the imaginative and prescient turned clear on tips on how to flip the beloved e-book right into a TV present. With their thought for a TV collection, and the Butler property’s blessings, the venture was taken to {the marketplace} with a number of bids.
Kahiu and Okorafor each attribute facets of their profession paths to studying Butler’s Wild Seed, by which they noticed that there was a voice for ladies of colour and that they too could possibly be that voice. They each establish themselves as Africanfuturists. Kahiu has usually referred to her aesthetic as Afro Bubblegum Art.
“We love Octavia Butler and her work and have for many years. But Wild Seed is our favourite. It’s expansive, disturbing, and distinctive, mentioned Kahiu and Okafor. “Wild Seed stays with you. It’s a love/hate story of African immortals that connects individuals on the African continent to the Diaspora. It merges the paranormal and the scientific seamlessly. You’re going to see shape-shifting, physique leaping, telepaths, individuals born with the flexibility to defy the legal guidelines of physics, all within the context of our previous, current and future world.”
Kahiu most just lately directed and wrote the acclaimed LGBTQ characteristic Rafiki, which made historical past final yr as the primary Kenyan movie to display on the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was additionally chosen for the Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London International Film Festival and AFI Fest, amongst others.
Okorafor is a global novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism for each kids and adults. Okarafor’s books embrace Binti, which was the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella and was optioned by Media Res; and Who Fears, which is at the moment in improvement at HBO with George R. R. Martin and Michael Lombardo. Her novel, The Book of Phoenix, was a finalist for each the Arthur C. Clarke Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her Akata Series received the 2018 Locus Award and the 2018 Lodestar award for the World Science Fiction Society Award for Best Young Adult Book.
