Matthew Goode to Lead Roadside Picnic Series

Matthew Goode will lead WGN America’s Roadside Picnic series

Matthew Goode (Watchmen, Stoker) is, according to a story today at Deadline, set to headline WGN America‘s Roadside Picnic series, based on the 1971 Russian science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The book, famously adapted into Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 science fiction masterpiece Stalker, was officially described in its recent Chicago Review Press edition as follows:

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of the extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty” something goes terribly wrong.

The script for the Roadside Picnic series has been adapted by Jack Paglen (Transcendence) and will be produced through Sony Pictures TV and Tribune Studios with Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones, Terminator Genisys) attached to direct the pilot. Taylor and Paglen are also attached to executive produce alongside Vivian Cannon and Neal Moritz of Original Film.

Matthew Goode, who recently appeared on both the final season of Downton Abbey and the new Roots, can next be seen in Robert Zemeckis’ World War II action drama, Allied. Also starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, Allied hits the big screen November 23.

The original text of Roadside Picnic, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, is available online as a free PDF, courtesy of Coronzon Press.

Mandatory viewing for cinephiles, Tarkovsky’s Stalker was officially released to YouTube a few years ago by Russian distributor MosFilm. If you don’t have the chance to check out the film on the big screen, you can legally watch it in its entirety in the two players at the bottom of this page.

(Photo Credit: WENN.com)

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