Emmy Award winner Alexander Skarsgård has been selected to play Murderbot in the upcoming 10-episode series recently announced by Apple TV+.
I’m unsure if I’m more excited that after 5 years, Martha Wells‘ incredibly excellent The Murderbot Diaries series is finally going to be a live action adaptation that I can talk about with my reading-averse friends, or more afraid that yet another series I relish will get hideously disfigured as interpretation transmutes text into video (think 2018 Altered Carbon making Reileen Kawahara into Takeshi Kovacs’ sister, 2013 World War Z not including the Lobo, 1984 Dune Weirding Module “gun” in lieu of Martial Arts, etcetera).
Apple TV+ today announced that it will enlarge its slate of acclaimed, expansive sci-fi series with “Murderbot,” a new 10-episode series hailing from Academy Award-nominated creators and directors Chris and Paul Weitz (“About a Boy,” “Mozart in the Jungle”) that will star Emmy Award winner Alexander Skarsgård (“Succession,” “Big Little Lies,” “The Northman”) in the guide role. In addition to starring, Skarsgård will serve as executive producer alongside the Weitz brothers. The project hails from Paramount Television Studios and is based on the bestselling and Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novels by Martha Wells.
“Murderbot” is an action-packed sci-fi series, based on the award-winning books by Wells, about a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable “clients.” Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.
“Murderbot” hails from Paramount Television Studios. The Weitz brothers will write, direct and produce under their Depth of Field banner. Andrew Miano also executive produces alongside for Depth of Field. David S. Goyer executive produces alongside Keith Levine for Phantom Four. Wells will serve as consulting producer.
The series marks the second collaboration for Apple TV+ with storyteller Goyer, who serves as showrunner and executive producer on the global hit, Apple Original epic “Foundation,” which recently aired its second season. Apple TV+ is also home to a growing offering of broadly acclaimed, hit sci-fi titles including “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” “Silo,” “For All Mankind,” “Invasion” and more.
