Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Being Adapted for HBO by Jonathan Nolan

News broke today that Jonathan Nolan, brother of acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, is planning to adapt Asimov’s classic Foundation series for HBO. The Foundation series is one of the classic works of science fiction (here’s io9 discussing its importance) and the news will likely thrill SF fans. Jonathan Nolan is most famous for co-writing The Prestige, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar (now in theaters) with his brother. He also wrote a short story, “Memento Mori,” that was the basis for Memento.

In a recent interview with Indiewire, Nolan expressed his love for the series:

Well, I fucking love the “Foundation” novels by Isaac Asimov — they’re certainly not well-known, but that’s a set of books I think everyone would benefit from reading. That’s a set of books where the influence they have is just fucking massive; they have many imitators and many have been inspired by them, but go back and read those, and there are some ideas in those that’ll set your fucking hair on fire.

Earlier this year, HBO announced plans to adapt Margaret Atwood’s dystopian MaddAddam series. Looks like the success of Game of Thrones is encouraging the network to take a chance on more epic SF&F works.