FUN WORLD

The studio picks up rights to the 1940s classic short story collection with John Davis producing.

BBC/Courtesy of Everett Collection

"The Martian Chronicles," 1980

Paramount is heading to Mars.

The studio has picked up movie rights to The Martian Chronicles, the classic short story collection by Ray Bradbury, one of the foremost names in 20th century science-fiction literature.

John Davis will produce the adaptation of the book of short stories that Bradbury wrote in the late 1940s about humans trying colonize Mars.

In three structures, the stories dealt with attempts to settle Mars and the Martians’ efforts to fight the humans off, the colonization of the red planet and a nuclear war that eventually forces most of the humans to return to Earth. In the aftermath of the war, humans become the new Martians.

A TV miniseries was made in 1980 by NBC and the BBC that was written by Richard Matheson and saw Rock Hudson leading the cast.

Universal acquired the feature rights in 1997, where Steven Spielberg and Davis, among other producers, tried to get a project off the ground. Michael Tolkin and John Orloff were some of the writers who worked on a script, which focused on a commander investigating two missing space missions on Mars.

The option reverted earlier this year and Paramount has now stepped up.

No writer is on board the new Martian Chronicles.

Davis, via his Davis Entertainment banner, last year produced Gulliver’s Travels, Marmaduke and Predator.

Bradbury, 90, is repped by Don Congdon Associates.