Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is one of my favorite movies, but my secret title for it now is “2001: A Pack of Fucking Lies.” We were supposed to have geosynchronous Hyatts and huge moonbases and manned missions to Jupiter more than a decade ago. Today I’m not certain the U.S. has a manned space program.
Matthew Brzezinski's book “Red Moon Rising” looks back to an era when the space program was really the space program. The great Nicholas Meyer has just been hired to write a pilot based on that book, which follows the U.S.-Soviet space race from the 1940s to the 1960s.
No channel is yet involved with the project.
Meyer is no stranger to space, having written and/or directed three “Star Trek” movies: “The Wrath of Khan,” “The Voyage Home” and “The Undiscovered Country.”
He’s also no stranger to The Cold War, having written and directed the 1990 CIA thriller “Company Business” and directed the 1983 post-apocalyptic TV-movie “The Day After.”
And he’s no stranger to quality period entertainment, having updated both Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells with “The Seven Percent Solution” and “Time After Time,” respectively.
Look! Press release!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - FINALPRIMERIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT AND NICHOLAS MEYER TO DEVELOP A TELEVISION SERIES BASED ON THE COLD WAR SPACE RACE
Series to draw upon troves of Soviet information revealed in recent years
June 25, 2013, Los Angeles – Primeridian Entertainment announced today that the company's principal Arcadiy Golubovich and partner Tim O'Hair will produce and finance a television project about the postwar rocket and space race between the United States and the USSR. The company has hired acclaimed screenwriter Nicholas Meyer (‘Star Trek’, The-Seven-Per-Cent Solution) to write the pilot and series treatment for the show, which will span from the collapse of Nazi Germany through the 1960s. Primeridian has in conjunction optioned the rights to Matthew Brzezinski's award-winning account of the early space race, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age. Numerous well-known experts from both countries are in discussions to consult on the project, including Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the Soviet Premier who led the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev.
The untitled series will examine the tense competition between the US and USSR superpowers at the height of the Cold War, starting with the scramble to capture the remains of the Nazi V2 program. Looking well beyond NASA, the show will compare and contrast the successes, failures, and individuals on both sides, moving behind the scenes to the men who launched the first satellites and set the stage for the modern technological era into space.
Arcadiy Golubovich, head of Primeridian Entertainment noted, "Given my Russian heritage, I'm particularly excited to see Nick Meyer weave together both sides of the story with a balanced approach, creating the most comprehensive and exciting retelling of the space race for television."
“The series will recount the human-interest stories that we never fully learned in our classrooms," said Meyer. "We hope audiences everywhere are looking forward to this thrilling tale of rivalries between the United States and Soviet Union and the race to control outer space."
Meyer is an award-winning screenwriter, bestselling novelist and director. Lionsgate most recently greenlit his History Channel series based on his father Bernard C. Meyer's Houdini: A Mind in Chains: a Psychoanalytic Portrait, with Adrien Brody to star. His other most recent work includes an adaptation of Dan Simmons’ novel, The Crook Factory, for Johnny Depp, and The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning life of Robert Moses, for Oliver Stone and HBO. Meyer is well-known for The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, his Sherlock Holmes take-off, which remained on the New York Times Bestseller list for forty weeks and won the British Gold Dagger award for crime fiction. Meyer adapted the novel for the big screen. The film, which starred Nicole Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave, earned him an Academy Award® nomination.
Primeridian Entertainment recently launched with a feature film based on the life of the famed Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsy, with Cyrus Nowrasteh (THE STONING OF SORAYA M., THE DAY REAGAN WAS SHOT) attached to write and direct. The company has also tapped Academy Award® nominated screenwriter Roger L. Simon to pen their second feature project, THE FUTURE IS NOW, which Primeridian’s Golubovich will direct.
Meyer is represented by Alan Gasmer and CAA.
About Primeridian Entertainment
Primeridian Entertainment is an international production company dedicated to producing and equity financing quality feature film and television projects with established filmmakers for the worldwide marketplace. Founded by Arcadiy Golubovich in collaboration with producer and former studio executive Tim O'Hair, the company will produce and finance 2 to 4 films per year.
