The Good Wife and Downton Abbey alum Matthew Goode is set as the lead in WGN America’s alien saga pilot Roadside Picnic, based on the famous novel by top Soviet/Russian science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Written by Transcendence scribe Jack Paglen, with Terminator Genisys and Game Of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor attached to direct and Neal Moritz producing, Roadside Picnic explores a near-future world where aliens have come and gone, leaving humankind to explore the wondrous and dangerous mysteries left behind. The story also explores the social ramifications of their visit, as seen through the eyes of Red (Goode), a veteran “stalker” who has made it his mission to illegally venture into the once inhabited zone and scavenge the abandoned remains of the alien culture.
Goode’s Red is described as an “enigmatic, blue-collar contradiction” who can be quietly intelligent one moment — and utterly ruthless the next. Red has a loving relationship with his wife Guta and his daughter Marie — who is shunned because she is a child of the “Zone,” the site of a long-ago extraterrestrial visitation. Red used to be a “Stalker” — one of the brave souls willing to risk their lives by illegally entering the Zone to sell what they find on the black market. Red, recently out of prison, finds his troubles are just beginning.
Written by Transcendence scribe Jack Paglen, with Terminator Genisys and Game Of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor attached to direct and Neal Moritz producing, Roadside Picnic explores a near-future world where aliens have come and gone, leaving humankind to explore the wondrous and dangerous mysteries left behind. The story also explores the social ramifications of their visit, as seen through the eyes of Red (Goode), a veteran “stalker” who has made it his mission to illegally venture into the once inhabited zone and scavenge the abandoned remains of the alien culture.
Goode’s Red is described as an “enigmatic, blue-collar contradiction” who can be quietly intelligent one moment — and utterly ruthless the next. Red has a loving relationship with his wife Guta and his daughter Marie — who is shunned because she is a child of the “Zone,” the site of a long-ago extraterrestrial visitation. Red used to be a “Stalker” — one of the brave souls willing to risk their lives by illegally entering the Zone to sell what they find on the black market. Red, recently out of prison, finds his troubles are just beginning.
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