Right after directing Gremlins, Joe Dante turned his attention to Explorers, a sci-fi film released in 1985. Starring River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke, the film centered on a group of friends who encounter extraterrestrials, and it’s now being turned into a potential TV series!
Via Deadline today, Cary Fukunga (“True Detective) and David Lowery (A Ghost Story) are teaming up to write a pilot script for Paramount Television.
The site notes, “Fukunaga and Lowery will write the script and bible, and one of them will direct the pilot should it get to that.”
Paramount Pictures released Explorers, about a boy obsessed with ’50s sci-fi aliens movies who has a recurring dream about a blueprint of some kind. He draws it for his inventor friend and with the help of a third pal, they end up building a spaceship. That will be the basis for the aspirational dramatic series.
Exec producers are Fukunaga and Hayden Kiessling of Parliament of Owls; Lowery, James Johnston and Toby Halbrooks of Sailer Bear Prods; and the movie’s screenwriter Erik Luke.