Amazon adapts space opera novel Consider Phlebas

Amazon Prime Video is set to adapt Iain M. Banks (pictured) novel Consider Phlebas with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment (The Big Short, Moonlight) producing.

The series will be adapted by Dennis Kelly (Utopia) after Amazon acquired the global television rights.

Consider Phlebas draws on a fictional world created by Banks, which is referred to as the Culture – a fictional society that he explores throughout a series of books.

The story follows a highly advanced and progressive society, who end up at war with ‘Idrians’, a deeply religious, war-like race intent on dominating the entire galaxy.

The estate of Banks, who died in 2013, will take an executive producer role.

Sharon Tal Yguado, head of scripted series at Amazon Studios, said: “The story of the Culture is so rich and captivating that for years Hollywood has been trying to bring this utopian society to life on the screen.

“We are honoured that we have been chosen, along with Dennis Kelly and Plan B Entertainment, to make Consider Phlebas into a television series we think will be loved by fans for years to come.”

Kelly said: “Iain Banks has long been a hero of mine and his innate warmth, humour and humanism shines through these novels.

“Far from being the dystopian nightmares that we are used to, Banks creates a kind of flawed paradise, a society truly worth fighting for – rather than a warning from the future, his books are a beckoning.”