A new series Murderbot starring Alexander Skarsgård from critically acclaimed creators Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz has landed at Apple TV+, the streamer announced. The series is based on Martha Wells‘ best-selling, sci-fi book series, The Murderbot Diaries, and will prove a thrilling watch. The streaming giant is continuously building a library of popular sci-fi titles Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Silo, Invasion, and more, and the new series makes a valuable addition to the platform.
The 10-episode long series follows a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion but is drawn to its vulnerable “clients.” When given a dangerous assignment, the sentient bot must hide its free will and carry it out, but all it really wants is “to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.” It’ll be fascinating to see Skarsgård in the leading role as well as how the story shapes up in times when artificial intelligence is a point of contention in our everyday lives.
The Creatives Behind ‘Murderbot’
We can expect the series to be an action-packed thriller, which examines human frailties from a sentient AI’s point of view. The themes can’t be more relevant and the talents behind the feature make the idea all the more compelling. The Weitz Brothers will write direct, and produce under their Depth of Field banner. The brothers shot to fame with 1999’s American Pie and, over the years, gave us thematically heavy but fun features like Antz, American Wedding, and The Golden Compass. The duo went on to bag an Academy nomination for About a Boy screenplay. Paul Weitz recently wrote and directed Fatherhood starring Kevin Hart, while Chris Weitz wrote this year’s The Creator and is currently working on the post-production of his next feature They Listen.
Emmy-winning actor, Skarsgård has a long list of titles under his belt like The Hummingbird Project, The Aftermath, The Kill Team and more but perhaps he’s most well known for Big Little Lies, True Blood, The Northman, Succession, and this year’s Infinity Pool. The actor will also be executive producing the upcoming series with David S. Goyer. The series marks the second collaboration between Apple TV+ and Goyer, who serves as showrunner and executive producer on the sci-fi global hit, Foundation. Andrew Miano, alongside Keith Levine for Phantom Four. While Wells will serve as consulting producer.
No further details are available at the moment, stay tuned to Collider for future developments. In the meantime, Infinity Pool can be streamed on Hulu in the U.S.
via Collider