Phillip Iscove’s Hollywood career began when he co-created Sleepy Hollow for Fox based on Washington Irving’s story from 1849. For his next TV project, Iscove is looking to one of H. G. Wells’ classic novels from 1896.
Iscove is adapting The Island of Doctor Moreau as a television series for CBS. In Wells’ original version of the story, Doctor Moreau was a former London physiologist who retreated to a private island to perform experiments on animals that gave them human-like traits and the ability to speak and reason.
For Iscove’s version of the story, the setting is being updated to the modern day and the gender of Doctor Moreau is being changed. Now the TV show will revolve around Dr. Katherine Moreau and her own brand of mad science. Technically, the new show could also be considered a medical drama, since Moreau’s experiments will be occurring in a “privately funded island hospital.†The title of the series will also be shortened to Moreau.
In the novel, the main character was Edward Prendick, a survivor of a shipwreck who discovered the nature of Moreau’s experiments and narrowly lived to tell the tale. However, the initial report does not list Prendick as one of the characters that Iscove will use in Moreau.
The Island of Doctor Moreau novel has been adapted many times in Hollywood, including the infamous 1996 version with Marlon Brando and Fairuza Balk (pictured above) as well as Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, and Ron Perlman.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Warner Bros. also have their own Island of Doctor Moreau in development as a feature film, with Hemlock Grove screenwriters Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman attached to the project. But it remains to be seen which project will happen first, if either of them come to fruition.
What are your thoughts about Iscove’s proposed take on Moreau? Don’t just talk to the animals, let us know what you’re thinking in the comment section below!
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Image Credit: New Line Cinema
