‘Nightflyers’ Trailer: New Series From George R.R. Martin Takes A Stab At The Haunted Spaceship Genre

While we all eagerly await the final season of “Game of Thrones,” SyFy is swooping in with another George R. R. Martin adaptation. This time it’s his 1980 novella “Nightflyers” hitting the small screen. There’s a lot of hype for this adaption after the 1987 film of the same name (which the New York Times called “nothing special”). Martin referring to this version as “‘Psycho’ in space” amps up the excitement and the show’s official synopsis definitely gives off those vibes.

“Nightflyers” follows eight maverick scientists and a powerful telepath who embark on an expedition to the edge of our solar system aboard The Nightflyer—a ship with a small tightknit crew and a reclusive captain—in the hope of making contact with alien life. But when terrifying and violent events begin to take place they start to question each other—and surviving the journey proves harder than anyone thought.

Martin was initially skeptical of the project. On his blog, he wrote that “honestly, at first I was baffled as to how they hoped to get a series out of my story, since at the end of the novella (and the film) pretty much everyone is dead (it was a horror story, after all). But in May, UCP got me a copy of (executive producer and writer) Jeff Buhler’s script, and I saw how he’d dealt with that. It was a good read, and yes, I came away with a better idea of where they’d find a few seasons.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Nightflyers” will be Syfy’s most expensive series to date. That’s no surprise given Martin’s imagination, but his actual involvement in the series seems to be pretty minimal. He’ll just be serving as an executive producer while he’s (hopefully) working on finishing up Game of Thrones’ sixth installment “Winds of Winter.”

While the 10-episode show will air on SyFy, Netflix is co-producing and holds first-run rights outside the United States.

“Nightflyers” premieres on SyFy later this fall.

Here’s the first trailer that was recently shown at San Diego Comic-Con: