Robopocalypse Heads Toward TV, With Ron Howard Set to Direct the Pilot
Ron Howard is attached to direct the pilot of a television series based on Daniel H. Wilson's 2011 novel Robopocalypse, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which reported the project on 3 November 2026.
The series is being developed by Imagine Entertainment and Weed Road. Akiva Goldsman is set to write the pilot, which is the first episode a studio makes to test an idea, and to serve as showrunner, the person who runs the writers' room and oversees the show day to day.
No network or streaming service was attached when the report was published. That step matters, because a platform decides whether a pilot turns into a full series. Until one signs on, the project has no confirmed home and no release date.
Brian Grazer and Jeb Brody of Imagine, along with Greg Lessans and Rachel Wizenberg of Weed Pictures, will lead development alongside Goldsman and Howard. Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment will executive produce.
The book has been on a long road to the screen. Spielberg optioned it to direct before it was published, and Drew Goddard wrote a draft script. A film version later had Anne Hathaway and Chris Hemsworth attached to star, but Spielberg postponed that film indefinitely in 2014. Michael Bay came aboard in 2018 to direct a version that was never made.
The novel centres on humanity's war against robots controlled by a powerful artificial intelligence. It is a story that has been tried in film before, and now it is being tried on television.
For readers who loved the book, the next question is simple: which platform, if any, will take the pilot? That answer is not yet known, and the people behind the project have not said when it might come.
