Lock In Acquired for Television by Legendary TV

Posted on September 15, 2014    Posted by      63 Comments

Here are the basics of the deal, via Variety.

To get ahead of some questions that might arise — it’s very very early days on this (I mean, obviously, since the book hasn’t even been out three weeks as I write this up), so I don’t have a whole lot of answers for folks about how it’s all going to shake out. What I can say is that I’m happy with the deal, I’ll be well involved, and I think Legendary is a very good place for Lock In to be. Aside from that, the answer I’m currently going to be able to give to you about just about anything is: “Interesting question! We’ll see.” I’m not trying to be evasive. Just: Early days.

I will say this, however: Holy crap, my life these days. Lock In is the third book of mine currently in development for a TV series at the moment (following Old Man’s War and Redshirts), a fact which is amazing and exciting and also kind of absolutely ridiculous if you think about it for three seconds straight. And in each case I am getting to work with fantastically talented people who know what they’re doing. And this is on top of the books, and the amazing people I get to work with doing those, and the video game, which again gets me working with just the best people you can imagine.

To repeat: Holy crap, my life these days.

More details, of course, when I have more details to give. For now, just know that I am happy. And thank you to all of you who are wishing or have wished me success. I think it’s working at the moment.

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63 Comments on “Lock In Acquired for Television by Legendary TV”

  2. Hooray!!! My sincere congratulations John!

    Assuming all goes well and nothing around here changes in the next few years (sadly probable), I stand ready to do what Aussies do best these days: pirate with a vengeance… :D

  4. Holy crap, your life these days indeed, sir. Well done.

    As I was reading, much of time I thought, “This whole setting would make an excellent television series.” Clearly people in position to do something about that were thinking the same thing.

  5. I didn’t discover you until 2014. Your success takes off to new heights later in 2014. Coincidence? I think not. You’re most welcome.

  6. Congrats, John. I plowed through the book in a night after seeing you in Gurnee, and it was just as awesome as anticipated.

    P.S.: I was the one who offered you the dollar; just so you know, it and a few of its friends have made their way to Room to Read.

  9. Felicitations, sir, and I very much hope this latest development brings you all you hope it will. I am not a television watcher, but I know I’m very much in the minority in that, so I am sure that the video version of Lock In will be a tremendous success if/when it comes to fruition.

    I do have to confess that I’ll be intrigued to learn how (or if) the video version will address the ambiguities you so artfully included. Guessing they’ll be sacrificed as too difficult to manage on-screen, but you never know.

    In any case, kudos, and enjoy the moment as you well deserve to!

  13. Wow man! How cool for you. Truly. Now the world gets to know what we all have known for awhile. Ihope in 30 years they are saying how Scalzi changed the sci fi field forever….thinking p.k.d here…..and heinlein…..no joke, bud.

  15. Though it’s a pale shadow of your excitement, I’m thrilled as a fan to have what looks like a full-on golden age of science fiction television to look forward to. Hopefully the other networks try to keep up by bringing more out.

    Maybe you could even slip in a sly wink toward closure for Eli in one of them… like a redshirt away team scraping skeletons out of pods on a derelict generation ship finding a “You Are Here” t-shirt and noting the color of it.

  17. Congratulations, Mr. Scalzi. I’m very happy for you. Three books in preproduction/production is an accomplishment to be thrilled about. Looking forward to watching them.

  21. I was at Booksmith when you made the announcement. Congratulations again!

    Also, thanks for signing both of my books (Lock In, and a Hebrew translation of OMW), it was great to meet you.

    (Apologies if this multi-posts…)

  22. Way to go! I loved the book and thought your interview over at Google was great. The fruits of your hard work are well deserved!

  23. Congrats! I just finished Lock In a few minutes ago, and had come back here to reread some of the earlier posts. How cool to learn about the new deal!

  26. I think this book is really well suited to being a TV series. I liked it and all but not my favorite of your books ever. Hey – you set a high bar . . . what can I say? On the other hand, the world you built would work really well as an ongoing, episodic format.

    I am so glad one of the good guys of the world is succeeding.

  29. Hell yeah, dude. This is AMAZING news. I must confess that I listened to Lock In before I got to read it, due to my local bookstore not getting it in on its proper release date (sure, I COULD have ordered it from Amazon, but the lady who runs my local store up here in Middle of Nowhere, Alaska is a genuinely nice person who has procured books I wanted out of her own pocket, and just generally rules, so I waited), but the tone and the ideas presented therein came across as Alien Nation meets Law & Order, and now we get to (hopefully) realize that. Frankly, I’d LOVE to see Amber Benson cast as Leslie Vann, even if that’s just a fan’s dream.

    Kudos to your success, sir. It’s well earned, and well deserved. Slainte.

  31. Another television series in the works? Damn, John, you poor guy, it sounds like your writing career is getting stuck in a rut.

    But congratulations, and many happy residuals!

  36. Congratulations!

    Maybe in a couple more years John can do a ranked top 10 list of his favourite “TV Shows adapted from my stuff” ???

  38. I remember that one scene from “Life Of Brian”: “You lucky bastard!”
    Of course Brain was going to be crucified so you may not be that lucky although with 3 in the works at once my guess you will be for one of them at least :)

    I think OMW & “Locked In” have a lot of TV potential and will really look forward to them if they come to fruition. I liked “Redshirts” a lot but the thought of what they would do to that on TV scares me a bit. If they play it as a joke it will fail badly. It has to be like “Airplane!” and played as if it were dead serious.

    Congratulations, I can’t imagine this happening to a nicer guy, good to see.

  40. Mr. Scalzi, congratulations. Long-time fan, first-time poster.

    I can’t help but wonder: Does a visual adaptation of the story mean that [mild spoiler which I will discuss in more detail after the tour — JS]? I suppose it’s too early to tell how the TV folks might handle that, but I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

  41. Dear sweet $dieity, please let them get both Amber and Wil to play in the series!!! Congrats Mr Scalzi

  42. w00t! Congrats!

    Soooooo many Scalzi-things to look forward to:

    Follow-up to “The Human Division”
    “Old Man’s War” TV adaptation
    “Midnight Star”
    “Redshirts” TV adaptation
    “Locked In” TV adaptaion

    Not to mention whatever else you have up your sleeve. Which I’m sure we’ll hear about. In good time.

  44. I JUST finished Lock In and loved it (on to The Rhesus Chart where someone is using a zombie as a webcam… lol). Very readable, the pages just fly by (unfortunately) and the end came so fast I wanted to stop and make it last but I just couldn’t tear myself away.

    But is is odd how I kept seeing Lock In as a police procedural one would (or could easily) see as a TV series. The farther I got into the book the more “televisionish” it felt. It is very visual and very descriptive. It was as if I was actually watching a near-future cop show on [pick your favorite network] but without the annoying commercial breaks…

    Which begs the question, was there a point while you were writing this where you stopped and said, “damn, this is turning into a TV show.”

    Regardless, loved the book and hope it finds itself on a TV screen near me sooner rather than later.

  47. Just curious, do you think, consciously or unconsciously, that your writing has (or will) change to be more “optionable”? I’m not accusing you of selling out – I love your books, I’m excited about the deals, and I’m happy for you. Just wondering if there are any points where you say, “I wonder if this is unfilmable?” or “I can picture this cinematically” or even “Wow, this has a great elevator pitch.”

  48. Congrats! I didn’t make the event at Vroman’s, but they mailed me my signed copy, which I just finished last night.

  49. That’s great. Because the first thing I said after I read it was “This would make a great series”. Just don’t let Fox buy it.

  50. Chris Palmer, ptavv:

    No, I don’t worry about stuff like that. I just try to write a book I would like to read. Coconcurrently, my natural writing style does appear to lend itself to visual adaptation, which is nice.

    Bluejay:

    We’ll have to see. I think it could be maintained, personally.

  51. This is such exciting news, because special effects have reached a point where they could do this story justice and not have main characters who look like K-9 from DOCTOR WHO. I’m not dissing K-9, I’m just saying.

    Good for you! May your life continue to rock!

  52. Congratulations! Expecting your new icon to feature you in a pair of Ray-bans behind the wheel of a new red convertible

  53. Congratulations! While reading “Lock In,” it quickly struck me how much the structure and dialogue felt like a TV show or movie – very similar to certain Crichton novels.

  54. I’ll add my congratulations to the rest. Have you planned to write any sequels to Lock In, and did this deal change your thoughts about that? Because as I was reading it I thought that it would be a shame if it was a stand alone. Very rich world building and I would love to see more.

    Thanks again for coming to Iowa. We had a great time meeting you in person. My kids are your newest young fans!

  56. Not bad for a guy who’s clearly pandering to a dwindling subset of a core audience that’s rapidly abandoning him for manly-men authors.

  58. .

    Wow!

    Congratulations!

    “The newest Stephen King of his era~!” one reviewer said. Well, no… but someone could say something like that, without being too absurd.

    And you live near Dayton!?! I once drove through Dayton to pick my brother up at the airport, driving through on the Interstate it looked quite interesting. Amazing that a famous author lives near me, up in Ohio.

    Best of luck with HOLLYWOOD!

    JR

  59. Wow! I step away from the internets for a couple of days, and this is what I miss? Congrats to you, and congrats to all of us for the chance to enjoy your work in another medium.

  60. I remember, back in the old days, when all around here was fields and not a Scalzi adaptation in view…

    Many Congrats! The networks seem to keep trying and failing with near future procedurals, hopefully this ends up as Lock In:Ohio, Lock In: the swamp formerly known as Miami, etc etc.

    So long as the threeps don’t end up looking like Goldmember-esqe sexbots, we should be fine :)

  61. Congratulations! I would say “well done”, but we all know it’s merely the result of playing life on the least difficult setting.

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