20th Century Fox has acquired Steven Spielberg‘s small-screen adaptation of his hit 2002 sci-fi movie which starred Tom Cruise. The Minority Report TV series is being written by screenwriter Max Borenstein, for Amblin television. THR is reporting that Fox has ordered a pilot with a significant penalty attached (which basically means there is more of a chance we’ll see it than not). But the interesting bits come via their plot synopsis:

The Minority Report follow-up takes place 10 years after the end of Precrime in D.C. when one of the three Precogs struggles to lead a “normal” human life but remains haunted by visions of the future. He meets a detective haunted by her past who just may help him find a purpose to his gift.

Thats right, the series will swap the genders of the detective and precog, and will also serve as sequel to the original film. Count me interested.

Our original story from August 21st follows:

Borenstein is best known as the screenwriter credited for Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, but he is also writing Legendary’s King Kong prequel Skull Island. He was working on Disney’s secret project Paladin (never reported, but that was going to be a movie adaptation of Disney theme park ride Space Mountain), but sadly the project has been on the back-burner (from what I’ve heard) since the Mouse acquired that other little space-set franchise.

Spielberg’s 2002 film was based on a short story of the same name by legendary science fiction author Philip K. Dick. The film was set in the year 2054, with action in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. There, a specialized police department called “PreCrime” goes after criminals before they commit crimes, based on predictions from (spoiler alert) three psychics called “precogs”.

Tom Cruise played PreCrime Captain John Anderton, who comes into the crosshairs of the system he helps run, and hopes to escape and discover the reason why he has been targeted by the program. The film also starred Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow. It was one of the best reviewed films of 2002.

A weekly Minority Report TV series would likely focus on an elite PreCrime unit set in the near future. Sounds like a fun take on the usual procedural with a crime/mystery a week structure. I’m hoping its more of a serial story with a long story arc told over the seasons of the show. You would think they would need to make the show different enough from Bad Robot and Jonah Nolan’s Person of Interest.

The Wrap, who originally broke the story, was hearing that Spielberg is expected to target a bigger name actor for the lead, just as he did with Halle Berry on CBS’ sci-fi series Extant. That said, its very unlikely Tom Cruise will be part of the television series.