Octavia Butler’s Hugo Award-winning Dawn is finally coming to TV! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ava DuVernay and Victoria Mahoney are teaming up to develop the first book of Butler’s acclaimed Xenogenesis/Lilith’s Brood trilogy for a script-to-series order from Amazon Studios.
Mahoney, who made history when she became the first woman (not to mention first black woman) to direct a Star Wars movie last year, will write the script and direct the pilot, THR reports. Meanwhile, DuVernay will serve as executive producer via her production company Array Filmworks, alongside Mahoney, Gary Pearl, Thomas L. Carter, and Allen Bain.
The project was first announced back in 2017. Previously, Bain optioned the rights to Dawn for a TV adaption in 2015, but the project fell through.
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The novel’s official synopsis, from Octavia Butler’s website:
Lilith lyapo awoke from a centuries-long sleep to find herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali. Creatures covered in writhing tentacles, the Oankali had saved every surviving human from a dying, ruined Earth. They healed the planet, cured cancer, increased strength, and were now ready to help Lilith lead her people back to Earth-but for a price.
There is, of course, much much more to this seminal science fiction work, which touches on gender, identity, biological determinism, how we communicate with each other, and much more. Lambda Literary winner Bogi Takács provides a great introduction to the novel’s themes and epxplorations.
This isn’t the only Butler adaptation in the works. Last March, it was reported that Nnedi Okorafor and Wanuri Kahiu will be developing Wild Seed, the first book in Butler’s Patternist series, as a TV series for Amazon Prime.
Ava DuVernay photo: Public Domain
Victoria Mahoney photo by Siebbi used under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
