Deadline reports Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and AfterShock Media are producing a film version of the sci-fi thriller Astronaut Down for Netflix. Created by James Patrick and Rubine for AfterShock Comics in 2022, Astronaut Down tells the story of Douglas Spitzer, a man recruited to save the world from a horrific crisis by venturing into numerous alternate realities. Patrick will serve as a consultant on the film, which will be written by F. Scott Frazier (xXx: Return of Xander Cage).
The film marks the first media project based on an AfterShock comic since they filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the end of 2022, and after announcing their return last year. The company, which has still not released a new comic, had numerous movies and TV shows in the pipeline beforehand, and Deadline adds a TV version of modern western Undone by Blood is still in development at AMC, with Tony Tost (Poker Face) attached as showrunner. (Ironically, that series’ co-creator, Zac Thompson, has been very vocal about how betrayed he feels by AfterShock’s management.)
Whether Esmail will also direct Astronaut Down remains to be seen. The filmmaker, who previously helmed Netflix’s 2023 blockbuster Leave the World Behind, is reteaming with Julia Roberts on his next movie, Panic Carefully, which will be released by Warner Bros. on February 26, 2027, and has an original sci-fi film, Tesseract (starring Glen Powell) in the works for Amazon MGM.
In the meantime, you can learn more about the source material on AfterShock’s website, and read The Beat‘s original coverage of it here and here.
