Looking to increase its original scripted drama output after the successful first season of the high-budgeted DEFIANCE, Syfy have announced plans for a series based on Terry Gilliam’s 1995 film 12 MONKEYS.

The film, itself based on Chris Marker’s experimental short LA JETÉE, follows James Cole (Bruce Willis), a prisoner sent back in time from the future to gather information on the virus that devastated humanity. While uncovering the mystery surrounding activist group the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, he encounters mental patient and animal rights campaigner Jeffrey Goines, a role which earned Brad Pitt an Oscar nomination.

There’s much speculation to be made over how this storyline will transfer to the small screen, but we do know that the film’s producers Chuck Roven and Richard Suckle will be overseeing a ninety minute pilot, to be directed by 24’s Jon Cassar. The plan is for this pilot to lead into a series, in the manner of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Syfy’s president of original programming, Mark Stern, described the series as part of “a return to our roots in terms of science fiction: cool, interesting push-the-genre science fiction”, going on to describe the channel’s upcoming projects:

“We’re really trying to figure out what our next year is going to be. We have HELIX in January; we’re trying to figure out what our summer series is going to be. We have a lot of different options. We know that DEFIANCE is going to come back in the summer, and the last six episodes of WAREHOUSE 13 are going to be back. Then there’s this big gray zone after that of what follows. We definitely have a miniseries we want to try to do for December of 2014 – Jamie Foxx’s is a series of half-hours we might do for Halloween of 2014. We’re looking to do a big four-hour miniseries – a tentpole mini – at the end of 2014, and we’re trying to figure out what that’s going to be.”

We’ll have more news on 12 MONKEYS as it develops…

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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