Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski will adapt George R.R. Martin’s 1979 book Sandkings for a new Netflix movie. Verbinski shared this update in an interview with Collider.
“One of the screenplays is based on a George R.R. Martin short story called Sandkings, which is this brilliant little twisted short story that I love,” he said, discussing future projects.
Verbinski is working on the movie with writer Dennis Kelly, the writer of the British TV series Utopia. The story centers on a rich kid named Simon Kress who has an affinity for collecting exotic animals. One day he buys a terrarium with four colonies of creatures called sandkings, which grow to the size of their container. The creatures do battle, and eventually they escape.
Most of the Bridges family–Beau, Lloyd, and Dylan Bridges–starred in a 1995 TV movie based on Sandkings. Additionally, DC Comics adapted it for a graphic novel in 1987.
As for Verbinski, he’s known for directing the first three Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean films, along with the Nicolas Cage movie The Weather Man. More recently, he directed Rango and The Lone Ranger for Disney, along with the thriller A Cure For Wellness in 2016.
Verbinski was also attached to direct the BioShock movie and he had grand plans to make a big-budget R-rated film. However, Verbinski said film studio Universal didn’t move forward with it because the movie was too expensive and its R-rating prompted concerns, too.
Sandkings is just the latest adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s work that’s coming to the screen. Martin’s Game of Thrones prequel fantasy story Tales of Dunk And Egg is also getting spun into a potential TV show, while a Game of Thrones animated show may be in the works.
Like those projects, Verbinski’s Sandkings may never actually come to be. All that is confirmed so far is that Verbinski is working on ideas for the Sandkings project.
