Novel that inspired Village of the Damned gets a mini-series adaptation

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Author John Wyndham's 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos (buy a copy HERE) has inspired three feature films, none of which have used the title of the book. Titled VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, the first adaptation was released in 1960. A sequel, CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED, came along four years later. An adaptation that might have used Wyndham's title was in the works in 1981, with THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER screenwriter Christopher Wood writing the script, but a Writers Guild strike put a stop to that, so we didn't see another film based on The Midwich Cuckoos until John Carpenter made a new VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED in 1995.

Now David Farr, whose writing credits include the television series The Night Manager, the 2011 film HANNA and the Amazon series based on it, and the horror film THE ONES BELOW (which he also directed), is scripting a new adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos, and so far it sounds like this one will use the title of the source material.

Coming to us from Route 24 and Snowed-In Productions, this take on The Midwich Cuckoos is set up at the Comcast-owned European broadcaster Sky and is expected to be an eight-part mini-series. 

Wyndham's novel was set in 

the sleepy English village of Midwich, where a strange sequence of events culminates in the community’s women falling pregnant with alien children with glowing eyes and otherworldly powers.

The story has been told multiple times already, but I'm interested to see how this mini-series adaptation is going to turn out.