Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, which ran from 1964 to 1968, followed the crew of a futuristic nuclear submarine protecting the world from extraterrestrial (and more human Cold War-flavored) threats. The Time Tunnel, running from 1966 to 1967, was about two scientists who become lost in time after being transported through their experimental time machine (the titular “Time Tunnel”). And Land Of The Giants, which ran from 1968 to 1970, is about what it sounds like—a crew of astronauts are pulled through a dimensional portal to a planet much like our own, except everyone and everything is really, really big. (The Giants also have an authoritarian government and futuristic technology.) Allen was also behind Lost In Space, but that one’s reportedly not in the mix for this new project after Netflix rebooted it back in 2018.
Goldsman, the architect of this new “Universe,” has a pretty uneven record, despite winning an Oscar for his adapted screenplay of A Beautiful Mind. On television, he’s written for the very good sci-fi series Fringe, but he also created the critically maligned Apple TV+ series The Crowded Room. This writer is partial to his work on the Sandra Bullock-Nicole Kidman feature Practical Magic, but he’s also the pen behind the infamous flop Batman & Robin. The guy’s got a lot of misses under his belt, but of late he’s seen success with the revived Star Trek franchise over at Paramount+ (he co-created Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds).
That’s the kind of shared worldbuilding Legendary is apparently trying to tap into with these Irwin Allen reboots. These old shows might not have the same brand recognition as Star Trek, but that just gives Goldsman greater license to put his own stamp on the material. Hopefully it turns out more Fringe than Crowded Room!
