George R.R. Martin was surprised to learn that his 1980 novella Nightflyers was being turned into a television series by Syfy, mainly because he hadn't realized that he'd sold the TV rights to it.
When he heard that the show was in development, he said, his first reaction was shock and outrage: "Wait a minute! How can they make a TV series? No one purchased any rights from me!" But when he read the fine print in the movie rights contract he signed in 1984 (resulting in a poorly received 1987 adaptation), he realized the TV rights had been included.
"And then somebody bought those rights, and then somebody else bought those rights, and so on," he said, until the chain led to Syfy and Universal Cable Productions, the producing studio.
True to Martin's penchant for killing off key figures, the original story, about a team of scientists on a haunted spaceship trying to make contact with a mysterious alien race, had seven of eight characters dying in quick succession. "I was like, 'What's going to be in the fourth episode?' " Martin said. "Who's going to watch four seasons of a spaceship full of corpses?"
So changes were made for the series, which airs Sundays on Syfy. But they were devised mostly without Martin's input because of his exclusive deal with HBO. Martin offers some insights:
Q: The character Melantha Jhirl is a black woman in the novella, but on one of the book covers and in the 1987 movie adaptation, she was white. How did you feel about that whitewashing then and about the new show's casting of black actress Jodie Turner-Smith?
A: Just having her cast was very gratifying to me after what happened in the 1980s. I wrote the lead character as a black woman -- the name Melantha means "black flower." Initially, when the story was first published in a magazine, Analog, they put an astronomical cover on it, just the spaceship. But a couple of years later it was reprinted in a short story collection, and that was the first one to show a character on the cover. To my surprise and shock, the character was a white woman! I phoned up the editor and I said: "This is wrong. She's explicitly described as being black." And they said: "Yeah, we know that. But you want your book to sell, don't you?" "Well, yes, I would like my book to sell." "Well, if we put a black woman on it, it won't sell." To my shame and regret ever since, I caved. When it was made into the movie, they cast a white actress in the role. I don't know if that was for the same reasons.
But it's always bothered me, and I've always thought I should have done more. Today I'm more famous and more powerful but then, I was just one writer among many struggling to make a living. When I learned that they were making a TV series, that was the one thing I came in on: "Let's cast a black actress." We finally got it right. And Jodie Turner-Smith is marvelous in the role.
Q: Weren't you contemplating giving up writing around the time of the Nightflyers movie? This was around the time of Armageddon Rag.
A: Yes, my fourth novel. Although it was well-reviewed ... It tanked, and suddenly my whole career seemed to be in danger. I had bought a new house, based on the prospect of Armageddon Rag being successful, and I had to take out a second mortgage. I was living on my credit cards. I started taking real estate courses.
So when, out of the blue, Nightflyers got greenlit ... getting that money, the pickup fee, enabled me to get out of debt. Everything I've written since exists in no small part because of that film. Otherwise, I would be showing people houses in Santa Fe.
Q: Were you surprised someone wanted to turn Nightflyers into a series? Almost everybody dies in the novella.
A: I've only seen the pilot, but they've changed things considerably. You can still see many of my characters, and some of the basic tropes and plot points. It's a much larger cast, and a much different background. But it's still a science-fiction/horror hybrid, more Alien than Star Trek.
Q: How is the Game of Thrones successor series pilot progressing?
A: Naomi Watts has been cast, so that's very exciting.
Q: How does Jane Goldman's vision vary from your original concept?
A: Well, she had to add something. If you look at the published books so far, there's really very little material about that -- a sentence here, a sentence there. Old Nan tells a tale that takes up a paragraph. So Jane had to create the characters, the settings and some of the events, and we had to look at everything that was said and say, "OK, here's what was said at this point, we need to make it consistent to that." We kicked around some ideas and I made some suggestions. But mostly it's been Jane running with it. It's set thousands of years before Game of Thrones.
Style on 12/09/2018