Viola Davis and husband Julius Tennon are teaming up with Amazon to produce a new sci-fi series.
The pair will produce Wild Seed, an adaptation based on Octavia Butler‘s 1980 novel of the same name, through their company JuVee Productions.
The fourth book to be published in Butler’s Patternist series, Wild Seed is the actually the earliest book in the chronology of the Patternist world. The book tells the story of two African immortals, one a killer and one a healer, who travel through time and change the course of our world as their personal battle takes its toll on the world.
Rafiki filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu is set to direct with sci-fi novelist, Nnedi Okorafor, attached as co-writer.
In a statement via Deadline, Davis called Butler’s book “game-changing.”
“Wild Seed is a book that shifted my life. It is as epic, as game-changing, as moving and brilliant as any science fiction novel ever written,” she continued “Julius and I are proud to have this masterpiece in our hands. It fullfills our promise and legacy to be disrupters. Octavia Butler was a visionary and we look forward to honoring the scope of her work and sharing it with the world.”
The project is currently in development, no release date has been announced.