EXCLUSIVE: New Republic Pictures’ Brian Oliver and producer Bradley J. Fischer acquired the exclusive rights to all works in Michael Moorcock’s seminal fantasy-horror series The Elric Saga. They are beginning to shop the property for series, with Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead and The Shield) and Prison Break and Star Trek: Discovery‘s Vaun Wilmott attached to adapt the sci-fi fantasy tale.

At a time when platforms are looking for the next Game of Thrones, this certainly fits the bill in terms of a sprawling series. The Elric stories are Moorcock’s best-selling works, a series of complex and layered novels that take place across multiple dimensions of reality and alternative universes. It was Moorcock himself who coined the word “multiverse” as a fictional concept in his 1963 novel The Sundered Worlds, now a common term used to describe the broader worlds of movies and television franchises from Marvel and DC to Stephen King and Star Wars.

Fischer and New Republic see the Elric saga — which begins with the 1972 novel Elric of Melniboné, as having cross-platform franchise potential. They are first leaning into the TV series with Mazzara & Wilmott. The novels are sensual and atmospheric sword-and-sorcery tales that center on the title character, a brooding albino warrior who presides over an unruly, decadent island nation. The novels follow Elric on a series of adventures, in which he is betrayed by his cousin, sent into exile and attempts to come to terms with his own humanity. The series comprises 11 novels and a number of short stories and has been adapted into several comics and graphic novels.

Mazzara is currently exec producing and writing The Dark Tower series for MRC and Amazon based on Stephen King’s novel series, and Wilmott was creator and exec producer of Dominion for Syfy and just sold the Texas crime drama series Bent to Jerry Bruckheimer TV and CBS Television Studios for the CBS network. Oliver’s credits include producing and co-financing the upcoming 1917 and Rocketman, while Fischer’s producing credits include Zodiac, Shutter Island, Black Swan and most recently Suspiria and The House With A Clock In Its Walls. The author has been honored with awards that include the Nebula and Bram Stoker and he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002.

“Glen, Vaun, Brian and I all grew up on the iconic works of genre masters like Michael Moorcock, and the Elric Saga is among the most influential titles in the canon of fantasy-horror storytelling,” said Fischer. “We feel privileged to have been entrusted by Mike and Linda Moorcock with a character and narrative universe as rich and diverse as Elric, and hope to deliver to generations of fans the enthralling experience they’ve been demanding for so many years from these masterworks of genre literature.”

Fischer’s UTA reps are handling the sale, and the producers and writers are armed with a pitch and IP reference deck and commissioned art work from an artist who has created covers for Moorcock’s books. Stay tuned.