Crackle Working On Sci-Fi Series Adaptation Of Heart of Darkness

Coming Soon reports that Sony’s Crackle streaming service is set to create a sci-fi series based on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness.

The series is set so far into the future that Earth is a “distant memory.” It will explore “what it means to be human on a space odyssey where the survival of the human race hangs in the balance and will explore themes of race, immigration, and colonization much like the book.”

Cameron Litvack will write the series and serve as the showrunner and executive producer with Branden Morgan and Tony Giglio.

Here’s a synopsis for the original 1899 novella: Heart of Darkness follows a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the heart of Africa, by the story’s narrator Charles Marlow, who is obsessed with the ivory trader, Kurtz. The central theme in the story was the idea that there is little difference between so-called civilized people and those described as savages in the story — creating parallels between London and Africa as places of darkness — as the novella raises questions about imperialism and racism.

The story was previously used as inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now.