Moving ever away from their roots MTV are setting their sights on the skies, with a new TV show based on War of the Worlds. Deadline are reporting that Teen Wolf writer Andrew Cochran is heading up the adaptation.

H. G. Wells’ 1898 novel has proved fertile ground for adaptation. Along with Haskins’ 1953 film Steven Spielberg conjured up perhaps the most underrated sci-fi film of recent years in 2005. One of the greatest feats of adaptation ever made was the Mercury Theatre’s 1938 radio play, directed by Orson Welles.

It became the most notorious radio broadcast of its age, and retains its chilling power to unnerve even in this ultra-cynical times.

If you’ve never heard it – time to immerse yourself.

This new TV series won’t be the first small screen outing for Wells’ future shock. In the late 80s Paramount tried a TV sequel to the ’53 film, imagined by the film’s producer George Pal. Their take on the continuing tale of Martian invasion was that the aliens were not killed by the germs in the Earth’s atmosphere, and came back to continue their work.

Here’s the intro they’ll have to live up to.

Ultra 90s, right?

More news on the new TV series of War of the Worlds as we get it. In the meantime we’re still waiting for a twenty-first century update of this classic story.