EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has acquired John Scalzi’s modern sci-fi classic Old Man’s War to develop as an original film. The novel is the first in a bestselling six-book series and is considered to be one of the best of the genre over the past two decades, nominated for a Hugo Award. Jon Shestack Productions and Madhouse Entertainment will produce.

Scalzi is a former President of the Science Fiction Writers of America and a three time Hugo winner including for Best Novel with Redshirts in 2013.

Old Man’s War takes place centuries in the future where older citizens are given a choice: age and die on Earth or join the military in the interstellar Colonial Union, which will transfer their minds into super-charged, battle-ready versions of their own younger bodies. It follows 75-year-old widower John Perry, who — in his amazing new body, Perry — discovers he’s a natural fighter and leads his platoon through grueling battles against hostile alien races. But when he meets a soldier who looks like a younger version of his beloved deceased wife, everything Perry thought he knew about his new life, and the war he’s fighting in it, is turned upside down.

Scalzi also has projects in development with FX and Working Title. In 2015, the author signed a 10-year, 13-book deal with Tor Books.

Shestack and Madhouse’s Robyn Meisinger and Adam Kolbrenner will produce with Scalzi and Madhouse’s Ryan Cunningham on as executive producers. Shestack recently produced Before I Fall for Awesomeness and Open Road. Madhouse produced the Warner Bros-Alcon feature Prisoners and recently wrapped shooting Screen Gems’ Slender Man, which is slated for a May 2018 release.

Matt Sugarman of Weintraub Tobin and David Fox & Kim Stenton of Myman, Greenspan handled the deal on behalf of Shestack and Madhouse. Scalzi is reprped by Joel Gotler of IPG in association with the Ethan Ellenberg Agency, and Matt Sugarman of Weintraub Tobin.