It looks as if Hulu is once again working with former Lost and current Jack Ryan executive producer Carlton Cuse. Along with Wonder Woman writer Jason Fuchs the two will develop a series based on Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi novel (and most likely its five follow up novels) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Adams originally wrote the story as a BBC radio comedy in the late 70’s, and it has been adapted multiple times for both the big and small screen. In 1981, the novel was adapted into a BBC series with Simon Jones and David Dixon playing the two leads. Disney, which recently bought a majority stake in Hulu, owns the rights to Adams’ novels (I did not know that) and produced a movie version (I did not know that either) in 2005 which starred Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel.
The series follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless Englishman, who leaves the Earth after its destruction by the Vogons, a race of unpleasant and bureaucratic aliens, who are making way for an intergalactic bypass. Dent’s adventures have hime cross paths with several other interesting characters: Ford Prefect (named after the car), an alien from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse who is a researcher for the eponymous guidebook and rescues Dent from Earth’s destruction; Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford’s eccentric semi-cousin and the Galactic President; the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android (brilliantly voiced by the late Alan Rickman in the 2005 movie); and Trillian, formerly known as Tricia McMillan, a woman Arthur once met at a party in Islington and, thanks to Beeblebrox’s intervention, the only other human survivor of Earth’s destruction.
I don’t know about you, but I really liked the movie. That cast was solid and I thought it did a good job setting up for something bigger that never happened. I’ve only ever read the first novel. I’m wondering if I should start on the second one now that this has been announced.
