Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm is heading to screens as an eight-part thriller with a reimagined international cast.

The new version has allowed the producers “to reimagine the characters to reflect the increasing diversity of the scientific community. This allowed us to put together a cast which I believe would have been unimaginable in 2004 when the novel was written.” The story still follows a group of scientists dealing with an attack by a swarm intelligence from beneath the sea.

THR lists the actors already involved: European actors, including Cécile de France (The New Pope), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Sex Education), Jack Greenlees (Star Wars – The Last Jedi), Lydia Wilson (Flack), Krista Kosonen (Blade Runner 2049), Alexander Karim (Dying of the Light), Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin), and German star Barbara Sukowa (Hannah Arendt) as well as Japan’s Takuya Kimura (I Came With the Rain) and Takehiro Hiera (Giri/Haji), Americans Rosabell Laurenti Sellers (Game of Thrones) and Dutch Johnson (Veep), and Canadian Joshua Odjick (Unsettled)

“It was important to me, that we don’t simply adapt The Swarm for the screen, but rather modernize it,” Schätzing explained. “An interpretation for the days to come, that puts the lives, fears, and hopes of younger generations centre stage…The scrips are written, now actors, directors, DOPs, and visual effects artists are taking over. I am eager to see what will happen and will likely sneak onto the set, to maybe play a fish. Or at least, a white crab.”