Syfy's ambitious new space opera series has just cast its hardened detective from the asteroid belt.

Thomas Jane, best known for his roles in the The Punisher, The Mist and the HBO series Hung (for which he received three Golden Globe nominations), has just been cast as the lead in The Expanse, Syfy's new drama based on James S.A. Corey's acclaimed novel Leviathan Wakes. The series will follow a "hardened detective" and a "rogue space captain" who are brought together by the case of a missing heiress and are eventually swept up in "a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history."

After winning the rights to the novel in a bidding war, Syfy gave the drama a 10-episode, straight-to-series order earlier this year. The series is being developed by Oscar-nominated writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby (Children of Men and Iron Man), and is one of a number of projects at Syfy with a harder sci-fi edge than many of its recent original efforts.

Jane will play Miller, a "world-weary" detective who lives in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and works for a corporate security firm that serves as law enforcement in the region. Though he's weary, he's still very good at his job and gains "a newfound sense of purpose" when he's given the case of a missing heiress to investigate. We don't know yet who'll play the rogue space captain alongside Miller, but it's easy to see Jane in this role, so we'd say The Expanse casting is off to a good start.

The Expanse, along with projects like 12 Monkeys, Z Nation, Ascension and Olympus, is part of an ambitious slate of new series that Syfy hopes to use as a return to its heavy genre roots. Will this be the show that recaptures the magic of things like Battlestar Galactica, or will it be another gone-too-soon series? We'll find out soon enough.

(Via THR)