Synopsis: Jawbone.tv takes a closer look at the upcoming ABC series FlashForward, based on a novel of the same name by science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, including an interview with the author who discusses having his work adapted into a possible hit series and the notoriety that it may bring. (For a complete transcript of the interview, see Author Robert J. Sawyer Interview - Unabridged.)
Barnes and Noble calls him "the leader of SF's next-generation pack," which helps explain why ABC is banking on Robert J. Sawyer’s literary property FlashForward to spawn their next great Thursday night franchise.
With reigning sci-fi TV champion Lost scheduled for retirement in Spring 2010, an heir apparent has proven illusive. The likes of The Nine, Invasion, and others did nothing to captivate viewers, leaving the network hungry for an authentic piece of intelligent science fiction to step forward. Enter David S. Goyer of Batman Begins notoriety, who just happened to have a gentleman’s agreement with author Robert J. Sawyer to option his 1999 novel FlashForward.
“David Goyer and his wife Jessika Goyer were introduced to the book almost immediately after it came out, by my agent who had a good sense of who might appreciate this property,” said Sawyer. “We had approaches from other people … we actually chose not to option it, but almost on a handshake … we let it lie fallow until David found time in his schedule to give his full attentions to it.”
In the novel, a science experiment at the CERN facility in Switzerland causes the world’s population to blackout for two minutes and seventeen seconds, during which time each person experiences a 'flash' 21 years into his or her own future. The series shifts gears to allow people to glimpse ahead just a matter of months and rather than nuclear researchers, it revolves around FBI agents played by Joseph Fiennes and John Cho.
Bring writer Brannon Braga into the mix, with his 24 and Star Trek TV stripes, and you start to see what’s shaping up. ABC’s got the makings of a genuine hit, and they know it.
Pleased with production in early 2009 of a pilot penned by Goyer and Braga, and directed by Goyer, the network ordered 13 episodes of the hour-long serial for the 2009-2010 season.
Adding to that, TV and film sales of Sawyer’s other literary work seem to be heating up – a clear tell that those in the know consider this one preordained.
“It looks like we just green-lit a motion picture adaptation of another one of my properties that certainly had been languishing for a number of years, and I don’t think that it’s any coincidence at all that suddenly it’s moving to the front burner.”
Will all the notoriety propel Sawyer into synonymy with names like Ray Bradbury or Gene Roddenberry? Ask that same question at this time next year and you may just have an answer. As for the immediate future, Sawyer is story consultant on the series and will write at least one of the first-season episodes.
FlashForward premieres at 8:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, September 24, 2009.
SOURCES & RESOURCES:
ABC Fall Preview – FlashForward Teased in a Clip
Televisionary Exclusive: First Look at ABC's "FlashForward" Pilot Script
Abridged Interview With Science Fiction Author Robert J. Sawyer
(For a complete transcript of this interview, see Author Robert J. Sawyer Interview - Unabridged.)
Jawbone.tv: You have an interesting mission statement: “To combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic.” What exactly does that mean to you?
"The neat things about science fiction is it’s the only branch of literature that actually has to be fractal, that has to be interesting at really small scales, and really large scales. In mainstream fiction you might write a little poignant story about a mother and her daughter, but there’s no sense that there’s also a war going on in the middle east, that global warming is consuming the world, that there’s strife and unrest on the planet, and beyond the planet all the things that are happening. Science fiction takes a very multileveled approach."
"Yes, there’s got to be a really compelling human-interest story at the heart of a good science fiction novel. But it also acknowledges that we live in a much wider universe, and it tries to have a correspondence or a dialogue between the 'intimately human' – the personal story – and the 'grandly cosmic', which doesn’t actually necessarily mean cosmic in terms of astronomical, but big, big notions, big ideas, have to interplay with the very personal."