Podcasts and other audio documentaries/dramas have become quite the source material for films and TV. And a Zachary Quinto-narrated audiobook from author John Scalzi is the latest title making the jump between formats.
The Dispatcher is set in Chicago in a distant future where becomes almost impossible to murder anyone – 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. The ongoing series follows Tony Valdez, a Dispatcher – a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those about to die, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. He teams up with Chicago PD detective, Nona Langdon, to help save those at death’s crosshairs and solve the crimes that put them there. So far, all the title has is a producer, Uri Singer, attached, and no word whether Quinto would take on a role in the series.
Scalzi has become a cottage industry in adaptations – his sci-fi tome Old Man's Waris in development as a film at Netflix, which has also used three of his short stories for anthology series Love, Death + Robots. One of his other books, the Star Trek-riffing Redshirts, is also making its way through the development mire.