Those who have been anxiously waiting for John Scalzi's best-selling military scifi novel Old Man's War to get a live-action adaptation won't have to be waiting much longer. Syfy and Academy Award-nominated director Wolfgang Petersen will adapt the books for television as a series titled Ghost Brigades, after the second novel in the series.


You might remember that Paramount had originally purchased the rights to the Old Man's War novel to make a movie, but those plans fell through. But don't worry that this adaptation is going to skip the events of the first novel; as the author himself explains in a tongue-in-cheek self-Q&A on his website, "The series will pull elements from various books in the OMW universe in any event." The title "Ghost Brigades" was used for the show instead of "Old Man's War" simply because it sounded "sexier."

Here's how Syfy sums up the series: