The Los Angeles-based production company Hivemind (The Expanse, The Witcher) announced it will produce a television series based on Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's groundbreaking sci-fi novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which is responsible for introducing the concept of the Illuminati. Writer/director Brian Taylor and European production company Kallisti will also be involved in adapting the trilogy for the first time since it was published in 1975.
Taylor will serve as showrunner and will executive produce Illuminatus! alongside Dinesh Shamdasani and Hunter Gorinsonfor Hivemind, and Iris McPherson and Kirstin Winkler for Kallisti.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is considered an influential postmodern work that delves into a world of countercultures, radical politics and conspiracy theories. In fact, Taylor argued it's perhaps more relevant today than it was in '75. "Wilson and Shea have created a fractal-like world of conspiracy inside conspiracy that completely anticipates today's internet-fueled, Post-Truth culture," he said in a statement.
Like the novels, the TV series will begin with the mysterious bombing of the office of a radical New York City newspaper, which sparks anti-establishment journalist George Dorn's quest to uncover the truth about a sinister global organization that has seemingly carried out every single conspiracy ever rumored. Soon, Dorn gets caught up in a secret war between the authoritarian and powerful Illuminati and a covert resistance army of anarchists, the Discordians. However, the question of whether this underground realm of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies is the actual truth still lingers.
Creators like Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Damon Lindelof, and Philip K. Dick have all hailed The Illuminatus! Trilogy as a major influence. Previously, it has been adapted as a play and as an incomplete comic book series.