'Event Horizon' Director Officially Returns to Sci-Fi With 2 Best-Selling Adaptations

Paul W.S. Anderson, the celebrated director behind 1997 sci-fi hit Event Horizon, is returning to his roots. He’s delving back into science fiction with a pair of upcoming projects based on author Kevin J. Anderson’s popular 2020s duology. The pair of films delve into the cosmic horror that helped establish Anderson as a filmmaker to watch.

Anderson is more recently known for directing several Resident Evil films, but it’s his work on the cult classic Event Horizon that makes him such a good fit for his latest project. The 61-year-old filmmaker has been tapped to adapt sci-fi horror books Nether Station and Nether Vortex in a fitting return to the genre that helped define his early career. His skill at adapting both novels and video games is a major factor behind Anderson’s success, and he’ll need the tools he’s gained over his career to bring the Nether duology to the big screen.

The Nether books follow Cammie Skoura, a brilliant young scientist who joins a research team traveling to the Nether anomaly, aiming to understand and explore a wormhole. The crew discovers signs of an ancient alien race that left remnants of a vanished civilization behind. A tagline for Nether Station sums the cosmic horror up well, teasing that “Space is vast. Space is full of wonders. Space is terrifying.”

The sci-fi author behind his latest adaptation shares a last name with W.S. Anderson, but the pair have never worked together before. Kevin J. Anderson is best known for his spin-off novels delving into the worlds of Star Wars and Dune, a number of which have been nominated for various literary awards. His voyage into cosmic horror yielded the Nether books, which were inspired in part by creations like Event Horizon. Speaking on the upcoming collaboration, the author praised the ’90s film, noting that he “couldn’t imagine a better director for this project than Paul W.S. Anderson.”

W.S. Anderson likewise had high praise for his latest collaborator, noting that he’s been a fan of Anderson’s work for a long time. He praised his writing and, in particular, the nuances of the “terrifying universe that he is creating.”

“Lovecraftian cosmic horror, as experienced by a unique, young central character in Cammie Skoura, has all the ingredients for an unbelievably compelling and terrifying cinema experience,” he told Deadline.

Blackstone Publishing

Screenwriter Jonathan Wakeham will adapt the pair of books for the big screen, and W.S. Anderson will produce them alongside Jeremy Bolt, who also produced Event Horizon.