Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain Coming To A&E

Michael Crichton’s classic SF novel The Andromeda Strain will infect television in a new original miniseries for A&E, to be executive-produced by filmmaking brothers Tony and Ridley Scott, Variety reported. Director-cinematographer Mikael Solomon will direct from a script by Robert Schenkkan, about an alien germ that comes to Earth and threatens to cause a deadly plague.

The miniseries is set to go into production this summer. David Zucker and Tom Thayer are also executive-producing. Andromeda was initially billed as a four-hour event, but could run up to six hours. Ridley Scott will be taking the lead on the project, which is based on Crichton’s first book. It was previously adapted as a feature film directed by Robert Wise in 1971. The Andromeda Strain miniseries was originally being developed by SCI FI Channel.