TV version of Gareth Edwards’ Monsters in the works

Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, from 2010, was a poetic and atmospheric creature feature imagining a near future where giant extraterrestrials roamed North America after hitchhiking a lift to Earth on a space probe. The film was all the more impressive for being made for £500,000 – peanuts in terms of sci-fi movie making. Monsters received rave reviews from critics and Edwards was soon welcomed into Hollywood, directing Godzilla and Star Wars spin-off Rogue One.

There was a follow-up in 2014, called Monsters: Dark Continent, but it failed to capture audiences imaginations in quite the same fashion as Edwards' stripped-back original. Vertigo Films will be hoping third time's the charm as they team up with Channel 4 to bring the concept to the small screen.

The show is being developed by Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett, with Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan and Marlon Smith on writing duty. Deadline report that “Edwards is likely to be involved behind the scenes with his full involvement determined when the project has been fully greenlit.”

In Edwards’ original film, the story follows a cynical American photographer (Scoot McNairy) whose accompanying his boss’s daughter (Whitney Able) from Mexico City to the US, a trip that proves difficult as the American government has built a giant wall to keep out the squid-like creatures who are migrating north. One assumes that this sly political metaphor will be kept in place, and it should prove even more pertinent in 2018 with Donald Trump as President, given that he made building a similar wall the cornerstone of his election campaign.