PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN director to helm George R.R. Martin's SANDKINGS for Netflix

Gore Verbinski (The Ring, the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Rango) is lined up to direct a film for Netflix, based on George R.R. Martin's novelette Sandkings.

Originally published in 1979, Sandkings was Martin's best-known individual story prior to the publication of A Game of Thrones in 1996. Set in his science fiction "Thousand Worlds" setting, the story revolves around Simon Kress, a wealthy man on the planet Baldur who likes to collect exotic animals and finds a challenge in a new type of animal called a "sandking". Things go wrong when he starts mistreating the creatures for his own amusement. The story won the 1980 Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards for Best Novelette and is Martin's only story to have won both the Hugo and Nebula award.

The story was previously adapted in 1995 as the first episode of the rebooted Outer Limits, starring Beau Bridges (who was nominated for an Emmy for his performance) and Lloyd Bridges. It was adapted by Martin's frequent collaborator Melinda Snodgrass and the action was relocated to contemporary Earth.

Verbinski is directing from a script written by Dennis Kelly (Utopia, Spooks, The Third Day). John Baldecchi (The Mexican) is producing.

George R.R. Martin's WILD CARDS TV series moves from Hulu to Peacock; SANDKINGS in development at Netflix

Thanks to detective work by the team at Westeros.org, it appears that the long-percolating TV version of the Wild Cards shared universe has moved home. Previously in the works as an NBC-Hulu collaboration, it now appears to have found a new home at NBC's Peacock streaming service.

Peacock launched last April in the United States and is heavily reliant on legacy programming such as The Office and Parks & Recreation. It is unsurprising that they would be looking to bolster their lineup with original fare, and the Wild Cards universe gives them a large roster of superhero characters to develop shows around.

The Wild Cards universe was created by George R.R. Martin in the early 1980s as a roleplaying game setting. Starting in 1987, Martin began editing and publishing linked anthologies of stories from numerous writers in the shared world. Melinda Snodgrass has been heavily involved in the creative side of the universe, and writers including Paul Cornell, David Anthony Durham, Pat Cadigan, Emma Newman, Mark Lawrence, Roger Zelazny, Howard Waldrop, Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck and Walter Jon Williams have contributed stories to the setting. The twenty-ninth book in the series is scheduled for release this year.

Martin's other commitments preclude working on the show, so the heavy-lifting on Wild Cards is being done by Melinda Snodgrass (who previously worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a writer and script editor, penning one of the show's most beloved episodes, The Measure of a Man) and Michael Cassutt (Z Nation, The Outer Limits).

Meanwhile, the same source reveals that Martin's novella Sandkings is in development as a feature film at Netflix. Sandkings was previously filmed - heavily reworked by Melinda Snodgrass into a contemporary setting - as the opening episode of the second version of The Outer Limits in 1995.