‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ & ‘Orbital’ Series In Development At Netflix By Umbrella Academy’s Steve Blackman
Whilst ‘The Umbrella Academy’ is due to close its doors next season, Steve Blackman is sticking with Netflix, as the showrunner and creator signs a new deal to develop an adaptation of video game ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ alongside a new thriller ‘Orbital’.
‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ is an epic sci-fi adventure series set a thousand years in the future, in a strange and beautiful world full of primitive tribes and high-tech machines, all built on the bones of the ‘Old Ones’ – the ruins of our present-day United States. The disaster that destroyed our world is long forgotten, but when these formerly peaceful machines mysteriously turn into dangerous hunters of all life, a young outcast named Aloy discovers that the only chance to save her world is to fight to uncover what happened to ours. ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ has sold over 20 million copies globally across PlayStation 4 and PC.
Blackman exec produces alongside Michelle Lovretta and Abbey Morris, with Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation, Jan-Bart van Beek and Ben McCaw of Guerrilla, and Roy Lee and Matthew Ball of Vertigo. The series is based on the PlayStation Studios video game created by Guerrilla.
‘Orbital’ is a thriller event series set on the International Space Station. The drama is an original concept by writers David & Keith Lynch (‘Twist’), who will co-create the series with Steve Blackman and direct an episode.
Blackman exec produces alongside The Lynch Brothers, Abbey Morris, Dan Lin, Nick Reynolds, and Jonathan Eirich. Ed Barratt and Richard Wylie serve as co-executive producers.
These projects fall under an overall agreement with Netflix which will see Blackman write and produce new series and other projects at Netflix under his newly established Irish Cowboy production banner. Alongside ‘The Umbrella Academy’, Blackman’s previous work includes ‘Altered Carbon’, ‘Fargo’, and ‘Legion’.
‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ and ‘Orbital’ are both technically still “in development” at Netflix, so may not move forward, but we’ll let you know when we hear more.
