Salman Rushdie Writing Science Fiction TV Script for Showtime

By Jason Boog 

Novelist Salman Rushdie has turned to television, writing a script for a science fiction series on Showtime.

A pilot for The Next People has been ordered, and Rushdie (pictured, via) will script and executive produce. According to The Guardian‘s headline for an interview about the show, the novelist thinks “TV drama series have taken the place of novels.”

Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “In the movies the writer is just the servant, the employee. In television, the 60-minute series, The Wire and Mad Men and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist … You have control in the way that you never have in the cinema. The Sopranos was David Chase, West Wing was Aaron Sorkin.”