Kinetic Content has acquired the rights to forthcoming Sci-Fi comedic novella BadAsstronauts by Grady Hendrix to adapt into a television series, with Aperture Entertainment.
BadAsstronauts is about ordinary Americans trying to accomplish an extraordinary, very stupid, and also extremely dangerous task: launching a manned backyard rocket into space to rescue their abandoned friend.
Kinetic Content CEO Chris Coelen and President and Partner Melissa Myers will executive produce alongside Hendrix and Aperture Entertainment founder Adam Goldworm.
The book’s blurb reads: “Melville, South Carolina was out of money, it was out of jobs, it was out of hope, and today it was out of astronauts. There were only two to begin with, and now one is stuck on the abandoned International Space Station after his mission went south. With NASA’s budget cut to the bone, there’s no one to bring him back home. But his cousin Walter isn’t going to let that happen. Tanked on vodka, living on a ‘farm’ whose only crop is cars on cinderblocks, Walter’s a wash-out from the Shuttle Program and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let his cousin die in the sky like a dog.”
“I wanted to write a book where people stepped up and took back their future, a book where people who’d been crushed by the economy used engineering and the good old American superpowers of Building Shit and Banging On Things with Wrenches to weave a magic spell that changed the world,” said Hendrix.
“Inspired by the uplifting, unifying nature of Ted Lasso, we wanted to take a show populated with the everyday American characters of King of the Hill but give it life or death stakes, ultimately reminding us that it’s still possible to accomplish the impossible,” added Goldworm. “Think Gravity with more beer.”
BadAsstronauts is set to be released April 19. Recorded Books is releasing the audio edition featuring the voice of Ezra Buzzington (Justified). Print and ebook editions are published by JAB Books.
Hendrix’s latest novel The Final Girl Support Group is in development at HBO Max; his book Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires was sold to Amazon Studios. Hendrix is also currently adapting his novel Horrorstör for New Republic and Aperture, and a feature adaptation of his novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism is in post at Amazon.
Kinetic is also adapting the novel Seven Days in June for television with Will Packer Media.
Hendrix is represented by Aperture Entertainment, Danny Passman of Gang Tyre, and Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky. Goldworm is represented by attorney Ashley Silver at Brecheen, Feldman, Breimer, Silver and Thompson.