“Iron Man” and “Children of Men” scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby will script the pilot of “The Expanse,” based on a series bestselling novels written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, for Alcon Television Group.

There have been three books in the series so far — “Leviathan Wakes,” “Caliban’s War” and “Abaddon’s Gate,” which was released in June of this year.

Fergus and Ostby will exec produce with Sean Daniel (“Graceland”) and Jason Brown of the Sean Daniel Co. (with whom they developed the original pitch) and with Alcon principals Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson and Alcon Television prexy Sharon Hall.

“The Expanse” will be an hourlong scifi drama with elements of a detective procedural, centring on a cover-up of the discovery of alien life. Alcon said it is developing the project in direct-to-series fashion internally before shopping to networks.

“We couldn’t be happier with the creative team on this project,” Hall said, citing the “rich source material and writers who can bring out the drama and humanity in this kind of genre.”

Alcon is in the midst of producing a four-hour documentary for HBO on Frank Sinatra, with Alex Gibney directing.