Michael Crichton's film Westworld is being remade as a TV series, in a rather big way. Deadline reports that the power trio of J.J. Abrams, Jonathan Nolan and Jerry Weintraub are executive producing the new version for HBO.

Deadline calls it "one of the biggest commitments ever for HBO," as the project has been given a pilot production commitment, jumping past other steps in development most shows go through.

Jonathan Nolan on the IGN TV Podcast

Nolan, who co-wrote the Dark Knight trilogy with his brother Christopher and David Goyer, is writing the pilot with Lisa Joy (Burn Notice) and will direct it. This is the second team-up for Abrams and Nolan, following CBS' Person of Interest. The involvement of legendary producer Weintraub is interesting, given this is his first pairing with Abrams or Nolan, though he did just work with HBO on Behind the Candelabra. This is the first major cable sale for Abrams' Bad Robot, who have been behind numerous network series in recent years.Written and directed by Crichton, 1973's Westworld was about a theme park split into three different areas -- West World, Medieval World and Roman World -- where the robots built to interact with the customers malfunction and begin attacking and killing all they encounter. Amusingly, it essentially is the same story template Crichton would use for Jurassic Park years later, about a scientifically engineered theme park where all hell breaks loose. It was followed by a sequel, Futureworld, and a TV series, Beyond Westworld, in 1980. Several years ago, there were attempts at a new movie version, with Arnold Schwarzenegger attached.Deadline says Abrams and Nolan's Westworld is described as "a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin."